María García Herrero: In This Field, the Sky’s the Limit

María García Herrero is a software engineer that has a fierce enthusiasm for technology, learning, and innovation. Working at Google, she specializes in Apache Bream and, in particular, Python SDK in a job she describes as being able to, "See an idea grow into an actual tool that solves real-life problems. In Shakespeare's times, getting a count of how many times he used every word in one of his books would be a daunting task requiring dividing the work among a cohort of graduate students to process a pile of pages each, counting each word in the pile, and then combining the results from all the piles. Now, it is a matter of seconds."

She went on to talk about her career in technology in general saying, “You keep your brain young, you meet interesting people, and build products that everyone around you gets to use.”

Her inventive nature and enthusiastic drive have served her well at Google and allowed her to help others that she has come in contact with. Maria recounted how,  “When I joined my team, I realized there was no training specific to our group (about 80 people) and I created one.” Proactive decisions like that are helping to cement her reputation as a leader in the field.

Maria is also an active member of the local Women Who Code SV Network, where she regularly attends the Algorithms Series. She discovered the group when attending a WWCode Interview Prep Event after a long career gap.

When asked what advice she had for other engineers she said, “When something is hard, our brain's natural response is to get distracted, to look for something else. The key to success is to stay at it. Something said about grief that applies in any kind of hardship and growth is: ‘The way out is through.’” She went on to note, “No matter what happens, enjoy the ride!”

María García Herrero: “In this field, the sky's the limit.”

Pro Tip from María García Herrero:

When a problem seems big, start with a small part of it (any part), put it on a Python notebook and just play with it. Then, even if you think you got it, save it and revisit it a few weeks later. It is easy to forget, but the more iterations you go through, the easier each of them is.