NJIT Collaboration with Facebook Boosts Opportunities for Students
Catarina DeMatos’ experience with Facebook started with a surprise in the fall of 2018.
She walked into her CS 114 class and learned her instructor was Miki Friedmann, a Facebook software engineer and a visiting faculty member at NJIT’s Ying Wu College of Computing.
Friedmann was teaching the class as part of Facebook’s Engineer-in-Residence program, whose primary objective is to increase the number of women and minorities entering the high-tech world. The program includes many extracurricular activities ranging from technical interview preparation workshops to dedicated support from a Facebook program manager and recruiter.
Having Friedmann in the classroom was a new experience for DeMatos.
“It was fun. He was very engaged, very energetic,” she said, adding that he always recorded videos of his lectures for students to review and made himself available outside of class.
That initial class began a relationship with Facebook resulting in an internship with the company in Menlo Park, California during the summer and plans to return for a second internship next year. This is an important achievement, as almost all Facebook entry-level technical hires are graduates of their internship program.
DeMatos is one of five NJIT students who interned at Facebook this past summer, and one of more than 250 who participated in Facebook-led activities at NJIT over the past year.
“Our partnership with Facebook has been a tremendous advantage for our students,” said Craig Gotsman, dean of NJIT’s Ying Wu College of Computing. “One of our primary goals is to prepare students to excel in the high-tech world. Through our work with Facebook, our diverse student body has received valuable insight that will aid them in the classroom and beyond.”
Teslim Olunlade, a sophomore computer science major, had a similar experience. He enrolled in Friedmann’s class during his first semester at NJIT. Olunlade spent a lot of time outside the classroom chatting with Friedmann during his office hours. Those conversations prompted Friedmann to encourage Olunlade to apply for a summer internship.
Olunlade wasn’t sure what to expect when he landed in California to begin his internship.
“It felt a little surreal. When I first set foot on the campus, it was a little overwhelming,” he said.
Taking part in a Facebook internship is an all-encompassing experience. Students live in dorms or apartments provided by Facebook, are picked up daily by a shuttle and taken to the office where all meals and snacks are provided throughout the day.
Interns are embedded with specific teams to work on various software engineering projects while with the company.
Christian McIntire, Facebook’s lead on education initiatives, said the company’s work with students begins early, with freshmen and sophomores, so they have an opportunity to build relationships.
“Beyond promoting diversity in tech, our other goal in the Engineer-in-Residence program is to make the course work more industry-aligned and as relevant as possible.”
In addition to the course instruction and internship opportunities, McIntire believes that the company’s work with students through extracurricular activities which include coaching competitive programming teams and technical interview preparation may be most valuable for students whether they choose to pursue a career at Facebook or another technology company. They contribute to a culture of computer science on campus, cultivating a community of peers for challenge and support, and provide an opportunity to practice and growth their skills outside the classroom.
During a technical interview, students are given a programming problem to solve. They talk through the solution with the interviewer using a white board and other tools to demonstrate their approach to problems, then implement their solution in code.
“Talking it through with the interviewer who is a collaborator is not meant to feel intimidating, it’s meant to feel collaborative,” McIntire said.
The technical interview lasts about 45 minutes.
Michael Vaks, a senior double major in computer science and applied mathematics, credits the technical interview preparation and participating in a programming contest with the second Facebook Engineer-in-Residence - John Tsai - with giving him the experience needed to land a full-time job with Facebook.
Vaks, who expects to graduate in December, said he will begin work as a software engineer at Facebook’s Manhattan office in the spring.
Vaks’ advice for fellow NJIT students thinking about a career with a tech company is to get involved.
“The opportunities are there,” Vaks said, adding that he went to a technical interview preparation session every week during his sophomore year.
Prior to accepting a job at Facebook, Vaks interned at the company twice, once in Menlo Park and once in Manhattan.
While interning, Vaks worked in a team focusing on client-side infrastructure for Instagram.
The Facebook Engineer-in-Residence program is continuing this semester with Noah Cantor, a software developer at Facebook. His team works on backend services, developing the infrastructure for live experiences on Facebook.
Cantor said he has always been passionate about education and is enjoying the opportunity to return to the classroom. Cantor is also continuing Facebook’s work with the competitive programming team. So far, the team has had one meeting where 110 students took part.
McIntire said NJIT is one of four universities currently in its Engineer-in-Residence program. So far, more than 1,000 students have participated in its activities, of whom more than 60% identify as underrepresented in tech.
“This is a flagship computer science education initiative for Facebook. Our mission is to eliminate under-representation in tech,” said McIntire. “We’re giving all students an opportunity to be competitive and build careers in the tech sector. It’s a pathway to opportunities.”