News & Events / Seminars, Workshops, & TalksTech Talk Series
The Northwestern CS Tech Talk Series offers students a chance to hear from and interact with distinguished professionals in the tech industry. The series welcomes speakers from top tech companies to share brief, 25-minute talks about what life is really like in the tech industry, the ways in which the industry has evolved, the myriad career paths available, differences between working at small and large companies, and how to succeed in startups.
Undergraduate and graduate students are welcome to attend and explore the variety of options ahead of them. The series offers students a unique opportunity to ask questions about career choices and hear advice and stories directly from experts in the field.
2020-21 Speakers
Michael Leonard
"From sloth to unicorn: how to go from apathetic student through engaging research to exciting startup by working on weird stuff that turns heads"
Quadric
Wednesday, November 18, 2020
5:00 - 6:00 p.m.
Deonna Hodges
"From Corporate to FAANG to Unicorn: Navigating Silicon Valley as A Newly-Minted Software Engineer"
Instacart
Wednesday, November 11, 2020
5:00 - 6:00 p.m.
Watch the recording
Shiva Rao
Google
"A Seven Year Career Path Through Altera, Intel, and Google’s Bleeding Edge Software/Hardware Systems"
Monday, November 2, 2020
5:00 - 6:00 p.m.
Watch the recording
Mudit Agrawal
Microsoft
"Learning to learn – exploring tools for success"
Monday, October 19, 2020
5:00 - 6:00 p.m.
Watch the recording
Sailesh Chutani
Logitech
"Computing as if people mattered – a provocation on ethics and responsibility"
Tuesday, October 13, 2020
5:00 - 6:00 p.m.
Watch the recording
Nikolai Yakovenko
Point72
"Playing with Data: my path from a Math & CS undergrad to leading a Deep Learning team in quantitative finance, with many stops along the way"
Wednesday, September 30, 2020
5:00 - 6:00 p.m.
Previous Speakers
2019-2020
Tech Talk with Piazza Leadership: Renars Gailis, Lead Engineer, and Caitlin McGarry, Head of University Engagement
Q&A with Shayan Zadeh, Cofounder of Zoosk and CEO of Dressbarn
Life After a PhD in Silicon Valley: Rohit Chandra, Engineering Lead at Stealth Startup
Tech Talk with Salim Chawro, General Manager at Microsoft
Life of a Computer Scientist at Google: An Zhu, Staff Engineer and Engineer Manager at YouTube