Ken Stillson - Professional Information
Current employment:
Google
I am currently a software engineer at Google headquarters in beautiful
Mountain View, California.
At the time I'm writing this (Dec `06), I'm still kinda getting settled
in here.. My initial projects is helping out with the security and
performance of the Google Search Appliance - a sorta of miniature copy of
Google one can buy in a box - for generating secure searching of an
enterprise's internal secure documents. It's a challenging area - for the
box to be able to index documents for both presidents and interns, the box
needs to have a high access pass to crawl the internal network, which means
not only must the box be very secure itself, but it must understand the
company's internal security mechanisms - no matter how complicated or
obscure they are - so that the intern doesn't see search results that only
the president should have access to.
It's also well known that Google allows it's engineers to allocate as
much as 20% of their time to projects of personal interest. At the moment,
I've started working on adding some enhancements to the Google Calendar
project. It's a remarkably sophisticated system internally, and will be a
good way of getting to know lots about the Google infrastructure.
So far anyway, Google certainly seems to be an incredible place to work.
I've never been surrounded by so many people who aren't just intelligent,
but are really bright, witty and playful. A few days ago a sword fight
(fought with plastic toy swords) broke out in the middle the office,
followed by a complicated game sort-of similar to dodge ball, using the
large inflatable beach balls (which are lying around everywhere throughout
campus for no apparent reason). Folks do pay for the folly with longish
hours sometimes, but the atmosphere is so fun, one doesn't even notice.
(Another fun item - last week a series of rule reminders started showing
up here and there. I thought they all seemed worded a little funny.. One
of my co-workers had to point out - they're all written in haiku. That's
just the way things are there; if you're gonna have to have something
boring like rule reminders, then you'd better make it clever somehow if
you want bright and playful people to take note.. :-)
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Mitretek is a non-profit public-interest think-tank in Falls Church,
Virginia. Most of my work was as a software architect and security analyst
in the areas of PKI (public key infrastructure), and telecommunications
modeling.
I actually really enjoyed this job; which I've come to appreciate is rather
unusual. The work was challenging and important (we actually moved the
field of PKI forward in several important areas), the skills required are
exactly what I studied and am good at. I've even managed to capture the
respect of most of my co-workers. Heck, the pay was even pretty good.
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I've had a lot of friends who allow a minor discomfort to get under
their skin, and dump an otherwise great job because "the grass is
greener..." I have come to realize that this desire for greener grass is
one of the great causes of human unhappiness. It took a lot to disloge me
from Mitretek - I was there well over a decade. :)
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Being a high-ranking openly-gay engineer in a professional environment
is interesting and exhilarating.
Even though I convinced Mitretek management to add non-discrimination to
corporate policies, there were very few other engineers willing to come out
at work. The presumption of discrimination is too strong. I am happy to
report that I've never experienced a significant episode of homophobia at
Mitretek, and feel confident that if I did, management would have responded
correctly.
That being said, it is amazing the difference between Virginia and
California. There are hundreds of out-and-proud glbt folks at Google.
There's a highly active and vocal set of "Gayglers" (that's "Gay Googlers"
-- everything has a cute name at Google), which has all sorts of events,
participates in pride marches in official Google attire, etc. Never had
anything like that anywhere in Virginia...
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(If you are interested in convincing your employer to add sexual
orientation to the company non-discrimination clause, contract HRC. They have a wonderful kit you can
present to management with sample legalese, explanations of options, etc.
Thanks HRC- you're a great resource!)
Education:
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I was fortunate to be one of the first students to attend the Thomas
Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, in Annandale Virginia.
At my previous schools, "geeks" were painfully ostracized. At TJ, I
got to be king of the geeks in a place it was actually cool to be one. :-)
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TJ was the first experience I had where the ability to learn was
restricted only by one's own limits; not by those of the teachers, or their
initial curriculum. When they saw I was beyond their "post-AP" computer
science course, I was given a budget, a two-period time-slot, and the
instructions 'Do whatever interests you, write-up what you do, and that
will become the basis of the post-post-AP course for next year.'
One thing I learned from TJ, which I always try to pass on to folks who
are still in school, at any level-- if you want to excel, you must never
limit yourself to the things that are taught in the classroom. In class,
everyone is given the same thing; if that's all you know, by definition
you're not excelling.
You must take responsibility for your own education. You should know
95% of everything in class material before it's presented. This not
only makes classes pretty trivial, but allows you to spend your time
focused on material more advanced than the class will cover. That's the
information which is the most useful, and most interesting. And that is
the knowledge that will allow you to stand out, whatever your grades. Get
ahead early- and stay ahead permanently!
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After TJ, I went on to the University of Illinois. Urbana/Champaign isn't
the most interesting town in the country, but the school is so big that
there's still lots to do, and almost everything is oriented towards the
students, which is actually pretty cool.
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You've probably noticed I like to pass on advice... The message I choose
for undergraduates is the wisdom my father gave me at the beginning of my
time at U of I: Although your purpose at college is to learn, keep it in
perspective. Your undergraduate years are the most fun time of your life.
The balance between freedom and responsibility is the most generous it will
ever be. Take the time to explore, to enjoy, and to expand yourself not
just academically, but socially, philosophically, sexually, and in any
other way that your spirit moves you. If you can possibly help it, don't
stay living with your parents during this period- you need freedom to
discover yourself. |
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After undergrad, I took an academic "sabbatical," focusing on work and a
social life. But after a few years it became clear that a master's degree
is expected when moving to the upper ranks in corporations. So I started
work on my Comp. Sci. masters very slowly-- one course at a time, and
finally finished after being at it for about 5 years.
Well, that wraps-up my professional life. Fortunately, there's a bit
more to me than that-- feel free to take a look around the other sections
of my page...
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UIUC
GMU (George Mason University)