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Tag Archives: pycon philippines

Exciting Things

The end of February was remarkable for a couple of things. First was PyCon Philippines 2014. I’ve already mentioned here a bit of my involvement with Python Philippines. I’ve noted my presence in Python Philippines’ monthly meet-ups. It is no secret that we’ve been working towards another PyCon Philippines.

PyCon Philippines 2014

I must say, organizing a conference is really a taxing job. Kudos to the volunteer team who worked really hard behind the scenes. And while yours truly was listed everywhere as a volunteer, it would be terribly unfair to compare the effort I spent compared to the effort of some others.

For day two, I was a speaker in behalf of Chikka. Chikka sent in a delegation of 26 corporate attendees. However, I was not able to finish day two because I had a flight to America scheduled. You see, I was in for an interview with the Google.

Yes! It has always been my dream to work on the type of problems which Google is tackling. I never thought that, as early as now, I’d be able to score an interview with them, at the Mountain View campus, no less. I did not get in but I’m no less grateful that I’ve had this opportunity.

While this whole adventure deserves a whole post on its own, let me end with the update I had at my Facebook profile after the closing phone call came.

When Google came calling

TL;DR: Nope, not yet. Still, thanks to everyone who wished me luck. This experience was definitely fun. Maraming salamat! (–,)

It started one Saturday morning in October last year. I received an email from an “@google.com” email address. He claimed to be a recruiter from Google who got impressed with my GitHub resume.

Now, prior to this I’ve already received a number of recruiting calls due to my GitHub and my PythonPH involvement. But, hey, Google? The Google? Just. Wow.

So…okay, I just sent in a copy of my proper resume as the recruiter wanted. Weeks passed without hearing anything from the recruiter. Until December.

He had me scheduled for a 15-minute phone interview. I thought that Google will finally have developer operations in the Philippines. During this 15 minute interview, it became clear to me that I’m interviewing for a position at their Mountain View campus. The interview went fine which led to a 45-minute technical phone interview in January. Apparently, they got impressed with it as well because they eventually had me for an onsite interview.

After some bureaucratic fiascos with travel documents, I finally managed an onsite interview during the last week of February. Google had me for an all-expenses paid US trip. I was in California for around four days.

I’ve been to a number of interviews already and I must say, Google is really different. They call it a panel interview but I think a better term is “circuit interview”. And it was more like a mentorship session than anything. No pressure, just geek-to-geek chat.

I managed to answer all of the problems they gave me which is to say I performed better than I expected (haha!). I just got a call saying I did not make it but getting from that October email to that closing phone call is still quite a ride.

I’m 21, college-age in America’s educational system. I’ve less than two years industry experience, while most of Google’s job openings require at least three. I did not approach Google; Google approached me. I think I’ve earned the right to be very proud of this experience.

Yay! \(^_^)/

The longer Story, sometime soon!

PyCon Philippines 2012

Title says it all. Glad that my UP DilNet account is still up. Wonder when will it go down? Hehe.

Keynote by Daniel Greenfeld right now. Talking about Linux/Ubuntu and robotics. And Python. Of course. (9:37am)

“People recognize the passion in you” – Daniel Greenfeld, who worked for NASA, with a degree in English Literature (9:57am)

Python walkthrough by Allan Paolo Barazon (10:05am).

Python Tricks You Can’t Live Without by Audrey Roy. What’s yours? Mine is definitely higher-order functions, map et.al. (11:06am)

Django Tutorial by Marconi Moreto. I’ve long wanted to ditch PHP for Python but never got/knew how to start. This one’s of interest. (11:40am)

After lunch sessions are about to start! For the after lunch session we have…

Mr. Sony Valdez is now talking about PyGame. My most anticipated talk! (1:13pm)

Functional Programming by Mr. Malcolm Tredinnick. I know FP from Scheme as you may have guessed from earlier (2:03pm).

(6/1/2012):

So, okay, the first day of PyCon did not end with Mr. Tredinnick’s talk on FP in Python but, after that, this post became too long to manage with my Galaxy Y. It became pure punishment to type. I wasn’t using the WordPress App for Android though; I can’t get it to work with DilNet’s proxy settings so I was doing it on my Droid’s browser.

Anyway, there’s little I’ve missed. The next talk was on Ansible Configuration Management by Mr. Rodnet Quillo. And then, Mr. Paolo Barazon returns onstage to talk about companies/websites that use Python. I know that a lot of companies/websites use Python but I didn’t know they were this many and this extensive!

Next, Mr. Tredinnick returned for a talk on uhhh…making maps with Python? I wasn’t very sure because it was in this part of the day that all of the week’s OTs caught up with me and I fell asleep. He seems to have been able to use some Python APIs to cartograph his own map. It would’ve been interesting to see if that can be merged with PyGame for full-scale games. Shame I fell asleep!

The closing talk was given by Mr. Bryan Veloso, of GitHub, on designing your own open-source project. Sometime recently (within the past year), slides from a GitHub employee became famous for two things: (1) incredible design, and (2) liberal use of swear words. Those slides, sans swearing, became my inspiration in creating the slides we used in our thesis presentations. Those slides were slides done right: eye-catching without being distracting, simple and yet complimenting the speaker in his points. I can say the same for the slides of Bryan Veloso. Maybe, it’s a GitHub thing?

 

PyCon Philippines: The First Ever

Hey! Did you hear? PyCon is happening in the Philippines! And it happens right at my alma mater, UP Diliman (at the UP Alumni Engineers’ Centennial Hall’s Accenture Ideas Exchange Room—a.k.a. Lecture Hall), from June 30 to July 1. That’s a weekend so I have no problems with it conflicting with my work schedule.

But…registration, with the cheapest being at PhP 295, most expensive at PhP 695, requires the use of PayPal, which requires a credit card. I don’t have a credit card and, right now, I really don’t have any plans of getting one. That sucks.

Although right now, at the PhPUG Facebook Group, there are requests of having payment done through GCash. That, I think, is a better idea since how do you honestly expect students to turn up if registration requires a credit card?

I keep my fingers crossed.

EDIT (06/10/12): Update from the PhPUG Facebook group: It seems that a GCash option will be rolling out on Monday (tomorrow). Yeah!

EDIT (06/11/12): And yes, finally, PyCon Philippines is accepting GCash (since yesterday, late update :P). They also seem to support over-the-counter payments. Don’t know how that one goes though.