Muhit Anik - BI / Data Operations Engineer at Facebook
I am working as BI/Data Operations Engineer at Facebook, Sydney. I have been working here for around 6 months and recruited by Facebook before graduating from Monash. It is wonderful to work here, probably the best place to work! Facebook in Australia is not as gigantic as their US counterpart. So, we enjoy working in the startup environment while receiving all the perks and benefits.
My role involves monitoring and analyzing the data and the data quality of the critical pipelines. Facebook receives a huge amount of data, over 350 Petabytes. That is massive by any standard. I write code to automate our services, to help teams like Instagram, WhatsApp, Oculus, Newsfeed to focus their time on development. We make sure everything is smooth; and as soon as something goes wrong, our AI picks it up and helps us resolve those problems.
Studying at Monash helped me to get into my dream company. Never would have I thought, coming from a small country like Bangladesh, one day I will get to work on Facebook. Not only Facebook, I was also shortlisted for Amazon, Google, Uber, Atlassian!
My advice for future students will be to keep networking and participating in the career expos to talk to the recruiters. To get a job, you need more than just a degree or what you have learned from your formal education. It's also about having good sales/people skills. However, most importantly, we need to believe in ourselves. If I don't have the faith in myself, why would someone else will?
"Studying in Australia was a new experience for me. I had to start everything all over again. Create a new network, know more people, get work. I found work as a Software Developer within 2 months of coming in Australia. For me what worked was I started taking small gigs. I knew coding since my Bachelor's was in Comp Science, plus I did freelancing for a fair amount of time while I was doing my Bachelor's. I kept on applying for work as soon as I entered Australia. I worked for small startups as well as freelanced for big organizations like the University of Queensland while I was still doing my Masters. For me, I was never a sharp student. To compensate that, I focused on the things I enjoyed and tried to improve my communication, social skill, networking etc. The key thing to stand out is to keep trying. I applied to over 100 companies. Got rejected many times. Sometimes, it was frustrating to apply for jobs and not getting responses. However, I kept applying as soon as I'd seen a posting.
Few pointers for new grads:
1. If you're in tech and don't have experience, start working on gigs/your own projects. Anything. Maybe your own website which you can showcase and put on your resume.
2. Keep your resume concise and well within 2pgs. Recruiters don't have time to go into every single detail. If you're applying as a software developer, don't put your hospitality experience as your work experience. Maybe you can write a line about it but I wouldn't stretch it too far.
3. Work for others, there are facebook groups which constantly look for people who can help in their businesses. Monash Career Connect is brilliant. I pretty much got all my casual works from there.
4. Be patient and diligent. Have the willingness to be uncomfortable. We can only become great by doing the things we've never done before. I have done all kinds of work and met all kinds of people. You will learn something new everyday.
5. Please talk! You will meet amazing people every single day of your life. Put down that phone. You may end up finding someone who will help you with work/your business or problems you have right now. Go out there and talk to people. (bonus for students trying to improve their English - Communicate with others. Your English will improve in no time). Getting work in English speaking countries depends a lot on, well...English! :)
6. Have fun in life. If you did badly in one semester, it's okay. Not the end of the world. I failed in two units at Monash. But eventually, everything turned out well. Improve the things you lag, work on your mistakes. If you haven't got what you expected, it's okay, try to do better next time."