LiveRamp – Ellen Sartorelli ’17

What’s your job? What’s it like?

I’m a full-stack engineer on LiveRamp’s Data Management team. I make UIs and APIs that allow LiveRamp’s customers to interact with our products. I work on a team with 5 other full-stack engineers and a product manager. Some of the technologies we use everyday include Ruby on Rails, Node.js, TypeScript, React and Redux.

How did you end up at LiveRamp?

I first heard about LiveRamp at Middlebury when some of my peers spoke about their LiveRamp summer internship experience at a computer science department event. I later attended their campus recruiting events, and then reconnected with the company at the Grace Hopper Conference. I chose to join the LiveRamp team because I was so impressed by the intelligence, thoughtfulness and kindness of the engineers that I engaged with during the interview process. I was also attracted to their high-growth business and exciting company culture.

How did you prepare for (technical and non-technical) job interviews?

I prepared for technical interviews by doing online coding challenges and working through practice interview questions. I think it’s important to speak out-loud to yourself while preparing because good communication a key element of good technical interviews. I prepared for non-technical interviews by doing a lot of self-reflection.

What did you do at Middlebury that prepared you for the job hunt and your job?

I outlined my journey to computer science, my professional and academic experiences in the field, and my goals for the future as a computer scientist. I also reflected on my strengths and weaknesses as a person and as a teammate. Afterwards, I distilled my insights into a few talking points that I could share in interviews. I frequently spoke about my liberal arts background in non-technical interviews.

What advice do you have for current Middlebury CS majors?

My advice for current CS majors at Middlebury is to take all the computer science classes that you can. The professors are incredible and every technology or concept that you are exposed to opens the door to a new set of skills or future interests.

If you have any questions about navigating the CS major, being a software engineer, or working at LiveRamp, email Ellen at ellen.sartorelli@gmail.com.

LiveRamp – Davin Chia ’17

What’s your job?  What’s it like?

I am part of the Pixel Serving team at LiveRamp. As the ‘real-time’ team, we ingest all events/data from our partners. This can be anything from 150,000 to 400,000 requests a second, and generate up to 20TB of downstream data. I help design, maintain and support systems allowing us to do this.

The job is immensely challenging, and its fun to be working on something that impacts, albeit unseen, millions of people. (We have the second largest browser cookie network in the world!) I am fairly involved in the product development, which means plenty of meetings. The best part is the people – nice, gets things done and smart are what we look for in new hires – who makes work less work and more play, and life much more enriching!

How did you end up at LiveRamp?

A recruiter reached out via Middle Endian. I initially applied as a ‘practice’ interview. The speed at which I was pushed through the process (it was done in a week and a half), everyone’s genuine sincerity throughout, and the fact that the then-CTO called me to talk about the offer, convinced me to take it. My internship experience sealed the deal.

How did you prepare for (technical and non-technical) job interviews?

Practice. Practice. Practice. I found CS late, in my sophomore year, and had a fair amount of catching up to do. I was on LeetCode a fair amount. Pairing with a friend and whiteboarding is also a good idea.

What did you do at Middlebury that prepared you for the job hunt and your job?

Study! Know your algorithms and data structures. Side projects are a good way to build experience and get a flavor for personal likes/dislikes .e.g Do I want to work in machine learning? Am I more of a front-end person? Do I think Javascript is the best language? I took classes with final project components as I immensely enjoyed hands-on stuff.

What advice do you have for current Middlebury CS majors?

I felt I was successful in classes where I was the most interested. So don’t feel pressured to pick a ‘cool’ class a.k.a machine learning. There are many many interesting CS problems to solve outside of that area.

The professors were the best part of my Middlebury education. Do stop by and talk to them during office hours. They often have great stories to share and advice to dole out. I also realized early on that certain Professors had teaching styles that better resonated with me, and so choose to take classes with them even though the subjects did not necessarily interest me.

Work hard but also enjoy the journey! I really miss Middlebury’s vibrant environment and all my friends!

If you have any questions about navigating the CS major, being a software engineer, or working at LiveRamp, email Davin at davin.chia@liveramp.com.