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.
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Previous Tech Talk Events
2022-23 Speakers
Sebastian Perez-Delgado
Northwestern University
"CS Career Guide"
Wednesday, October 12, 2022
Watch the recording
2021-22 Speakers
Marc Tarpenning
"Exciting Adventures of Amazing Entrepreneurs: A Talk with Marc Tarpenning"
Venture Partner, Spero Ventures
Co-founder, NuvoMedia, Inc.
Co-founder, Tesla Motors, Inc.
Wednesday, November 10, 2021
Watch the recording
2020-21 Speakers
Michael Leonard
Quadric
"From sloth to unicorn: how to go from apathetic student through engaging research to exciting startup by working on weird stuff that turns heads"
Wednesday, November 18, 2020
Deonna Hodges
Instacart
"From Corporate to FAANG to Unicorn: Navigating Silicon Valley as A Newly-Minted Software Engineer"
Wednesday, November 11, 2020
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
Watch the recording
Mudit Agrawal
Microsoft
"Learning to learn – exploring tools for success"
Monday, October 19, 2020
Watch the recording
Sailesh Chutani
Logitech
"Computing as if people mattered – a provocation on ethics and responsibility"
Tuesday, October 13, 2020
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
Tech Talk Series: 2019-20
- 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