Sam works for tech giant Google

What company are you with and what are you working on at the moment?

I work at Google as a software engineer in audio processing. Most recently, I worked with two colleagues to extend our algorithms to support stereo and surround sound.

My team mainly contributes to the WebRTC  implementation in Google Chrome and the audio guts of the Google Duo  app. I have mainly worked on improving echo cancellation  algorithms and our APIs since starting here, although the work varies a lot.

What is a regular day like at your job?

A typical day involves some of the following tasks:

Writing code. Any feature, bug fix, or other improvement we want to bring to our clients must be implemented. I say: “write code”, but really, the lion’s share comprises reading our code to plan what changes are necessary. A lot of the code is publicly available  as part of the Chromium project.

Performing code reviews. Every piece of code we add to the code base must be reviewed by at least one other developer. This catches a lot of bugs earlier and has taught me a great deal about good coding practices from more experienced reviewers.

Analysing user data to look for new areas that need work, or to evaluate existing A/B experiments when we try new algorithms. For someone interested in data analysis, it’s a real privilege to have millions of users to help us understand what works and what doesn’t work.

Reading up on a new subject or technology. There are audio modules in our code that I still don’t know (I know the transient suppressor is based on a wavelet transform – but how?), and I will never run out of different software tools and frameworks used at Google that are useful to understand. We run a study group in signal processing with the audio teams, to cover knowledge gaps and new developments in audio, signal processing and machine learning. This really helped me ramp up on a lot of audio-specific knowledge that I did not have when I started, and it gives me my weekly dose of theory.

Have you worked on anything else since you graduated?

No, I started working at Google in June 2017 after finishing my studies at KTH. During my studies, I did two internships at Nasdaq.

Why did you choose this programme at KTH?

I was already quite interested in mathematics and programming and was pretty set on studying at KTH because it’s a good university. I did my bachelor’s at KTH, where I studied in Swedish. Engineering physics was the most mathematics-heavy programme available. It’s pretty prestigious and you can work in a wide array of fields after graduating. I focused even more on mathematics in my master’s by choosing the master’s programme in Mathematics.

Are there any insights or knowledge you acquired during your studies that have been particularly useful for you in your career?

It is important to enjoy what you study and work with, regardless of the area. Use your time at KTH, the elective courses, and your choice of degree projects, to try out different subjects and focus on what you enjoy. I used my bachelor’s thesis to do more applied mathematics and I then spent the first semester of my master’s heavily focused on pure mathematics, the second semester with an array of computer science courses and the third semester abroad in Switzerland, where I tried to do some research for my master’s thesis.

A lot of the modelling and intuition from the physics courses pays off in new contexts. For example, having simulated resonance in a silly model of the Eiffel Tower in our numerical analysis course and metal beams in the solid mechanics course were useful when considering how a rattling screw will affect the way a loudspeaker element sounds. Also, most of the control theory course is relevant to signal processing and audio filtering in general, as well as specifically when modelling how a loudspeaker is picked up by a microphone (for echo cancellation).

What were the best aspects of your time at KTH?

The dance groups I joined, being in a student orchestra (PQ) and a student musical (Fysikalen). The student life at KTH is vibrant and taught me a great deal about how organizations, people and life work. My fellow dancers will always have a special place in my heart :)

I will also always remember my experiences abroad: in China, on a short modern physics project, and in Switzerland, for a semester of studies at EPFL – fast-paced courses, high-altitude day trips with the mountaineering club. I lived in a small village in the mountains! Stockholm is as flat as the Euclidean plane in comparison.

What would you want to say to a student who was thinking of applying for this programme?

Mathematics is a demanding programme, but you learn a lot, it opens many doors, and there’s a great, caring community in the Physics Chapter. If you like physics or mathematics and digging into why things are the way they are, go for it.