Senior Success: Google Hires Software Engineer David Michaelson

David Michaelson is the latest Ying Wu College of Computing graduate to enter Google's software engineering residency program.

Michaelson finished his computer science degree in May with plenty of experience. Besides studying, he worked 20 hours per week for several semesters starting in 2018 as an applications development intern at Broadridge Financial Solutions, riding his electric scooter back and forth between NJIT and downtown Newark.

The resident of Lawrence Township is a nerd's nerd — "I really do like devops," he said, using the trendy industry term for a converged philosophy of software development and information technology operations. "A lot of operations, automation and that kind of stuff. I'm really open-ended. Just give me a cool project to work on in a language that I don't find miserable."

Michaelson was also an officer in NJIT's student chapter of the Association for Computing Machinery, served as course assistant for one semester, worked in tutoring for a year and entered multiple hackathons. His capstone project was a data transfer application for a company called CircleBlack Financial.

By working at Google, in New York, he'll get two months of training followed by rotations to work on different projects. However, he said, sometimes there is an excellent match and a project group keeps the resident full time. Overall, he explained, "This is a yearlong program where they will look to convert you to a permanent employee."

Michaelson cited Facebook's Noah Cantor, who worked as an NJIT guest instructor, as a major inspiration. He also applauded Professors Gerard Ryan and Susan Thompson.

He is scheduled to start at Google July 27, most likely remotely due to COVID. Asked which Google product team he would most like to join, Michaelson said he's happy to be there but could not hide his passion for two applications in particular.

"This is my dream job. I'm not going to lie," he said. "I'm a huge geography nerd ... so Google Maps, Google Earth, you'll just find me looking around randomly."

Outside of class, his favorite memories include the annual HackNJIT event and its pie-eating contest one year to win a Raspberry Pi microcontroller. Videogames and tabletop gaming sessions with friends are also on his list.

His parting advice to current and incoming students: By getting involved with social events and clubs, "You'll make a lot of friends and professional connections and you can excite a future employer by talking about your involvement. Even if you are the introverted type like I find myself often being, it is worth it," Michaelson said. "Put yourself out there. Friends are the key to doing well at NJIT because you end up being able to help each other out with classes and, of course, social well-being and happiness is important for getting your work done."