Caltech Alumni Career Profiles

Many Caltech alumni pursue careers in academia and industry, while others follow less conventional paths. We profile Caltech careers from across the alumni spectrum.

See all previous Alumni Career Profiles.

Niniane Wang
BS '98, Engineering and Applied Science

How did you transition from your studies at Caltech to your current position?

After Caltech (go Dabney!), I worked at Microsoft for five years as a software engineer in the Games group. I programmed clouds and weather for Flight Simulator. In 2003, I came to Google, where I've worked on Desktop Search, Gmail, and an unannounced project which I chartered. I'm now managing a group of awesome engineers.

Describe a "day in the life." What do you encounter in a typical day on the job?

I spend a couple hours of the day in meetings to discuss project features, timeline, or coordination with other groups (QA, other product teams, Marketing, Legal, etc). I spend some time interacting with my team and having technical discussions. I spend the rest of my time coding.

What are your "extra-curricular" activities? What do you do outside of work?

I love creative writing. I've taken several evening writing courses at Stanford. In 2003, I wrote a novel in a single month for the National Novel Writing Month event. It was pure drivel. I'm doing it again this year! I also write a blog.

What's your best advice to Caltech students, or to alumni who want to switch to a career like yours?

The best programmers in the world are those who do it because they love it. They are also the happiest programmers in the world. In high school, I did a lot of programming to make silly games for my younger brother: word-typing games to rescue a princess, adventure games to practice multiplication. Find what you enjoy about coding, and the rest will come. If you don't have fun doing it, it's not worth doing.

 

 

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