1. Computing Sector employees Q&A

2. Marco: Why did you choose this career? “I’m curious about everything; I like to find answers and I like to build and make things work.” “My internship at Fermilab revealed to me this environment where it is possible to work on challenging problems beyond the standard computing systems and at the same time focus on building concrete solutions, both in terms of reliability and performance.”

3. Marco: What is the most satisfying thing about your job? “It is nice to see the results of my labor in action, allowing the scientists to work faster and do better research.” “The computing problems I have to solve are challenging and the scale is exciting: We move petabytes of data and control millions of CPU hours.”

4. Marco: What personal characteristics does your job require? “Being patient and methodical helps.” “Good communication skills are important because you are always working in a team, and often with people with very different backgrounds.”

5. Marco: Can you describe a typical day? Installing services in the cloud, even a whole new cluster and workflow manager when a new version needs to be tested. Interacting with colleagues: sometimes they have technical questions for me; sometimes they help me solve a problem; sometimes we discuss which changes would make a program easier or even more useful. Troubleshooting to find the causes of a bug or thinking about the best way to implement a new feature, coding (mostly in Python) or reviewing someone else’s code. And, of course, there are also planning meetings, presentations and many emails. Sometimes I attend interesting seminars or events like this STEM Expo.

6. Marco: What advice would you give me to help plan for my future in this career? “Build some programming skills. It’s a very useful tool to have.” “Find some programs (at school or during the summer) where you can get to know high-throughput computing resources: clusters, clouds, grids, complex storage and distributed computing systems.”

7. Marco: Does your position require any specific skills? Programming experience in Python, Java and others. Specific languages are not too difficult to learn and change over time, but logic, structure and organization take more time to build. So practice with one language to develop your programming abilities. Troubleshooting skills are less structured: it is all about knowing the systems you work with and thinking about what could go wrong. My degree in computer engineering helps me understand how complex distributed systems work, and how I can change them for the better.

8. Krista: Why did you choose this career? “My undergraduate degree was actually in biomedical engineering.” “After working in the corporate sector in IT jobs, the next step was to get an MBA so I took an undergraduate economics class - I did not like it at all! It made me realize my real passion has always been in computer science, and graduate school showed me how academia was much more my style. Luckily one of my professors referred me here.”

9. Krista: What is the most satisfying this about your job? “Fermilab allows me to work on cutting-edge technologies and with some of the smartest people on the planet.” “There is always something new to learn. The campus atmosphere here is great: I volunteer for the public arts series, take exercise classes at the gym, and my boss encourages taking time to attend the many lectures offered here.”

10. Krista: What advice would you give me to help me plan for my future in this career? “Network, network, network! I wouldn’t be working here if I hadn’t taken the time to get to know my professors. “And realize that your first (or in my case second and third) may not always be your dream job. You can learn a lot from any job, if nothing else, it can help you know what you don’t want to do for a living!”

11. Anne: Why did you choose this career? “After studying physics, working on experiments then working in the commercial software environment, I discovered that my best contributions were written descriptions of how things work.”

12. Anne: What do you do in your job? “As a technical writer in computing, I exercise the software as I document it to make sure I understand how it works. I consult with programmers as needed, and also provide feedback. I write documentation in Word, wikis, HTML and other formats. I often have to create graphics to accompany the text.” As a technical editor for science experiments, I collect and compile information from teams of scientists, and in collaboration with them, organize it, edit it, format it and produce a document. As a science writer, I write articles about technical or scientific accomplishments for a general audience.

13. Anne: What is the most satisfying thing about your job? “I'm always learning something, and my work helps other people learn things. ”

14. Anne: What personal characteristics does this job require? You have to be able to organize information, look at it from a variety of points of view and determine what the intended audience will think is important. You need good English writing and computer skills. A sense of design and layout helps; navigation paths through a document or web site should be clear. "You have to be able to collaborate ; often a team works together on a document.” And finally, you have to persevere through the tedious parts to make sure the quality is high and consistent.

15. Anne: Can you describe a typical day? “There are a few typical kinds of days.” “A day when you meet with the expert for a couple of hours then sit by yourself and try to make sense of all your notes.” “A day when you're fighting with your software either because you're still learning about it or something changed.” “A day when you're trying out the commands that you're documenting (in the case of a software manual), capturing the output and noting the tips that will help users.” “A day when you're doing a quality check — the tedious business of ‘crossing the t's and dotting the i's.’”

16. Anne: What advice would you give me to help me plan for my future in this career? “Take science, math and English writing courses. Develop some technical skills (you'll be working with technical people).”

17. Andrew: Why did you choose this career? “Being a physicist was a way to combine all the things I love to do.” “It lets me ask the "BIG" questions like ‘What are the differences between matter and anti-matter? What are the smallest building blocks of the universe? What happens when stars die?’ It lets me work with the most advanced computing to develop new technologies and analysis techniques.”

18. Andrew: What is the most satisfying thing about your job? “Watching my experiment see "new" things.” “Every time we make a small change to enable the detectors to see new phenomena, there's always that "moment of truth" when we turn it on and see if it actually worked. I love going to the control room and watching these moments.”

19. Andrew: What personal characteristics does this job require? “Determination, patience and a thirst for knowledge.” “You have to always be asking questions and never be willing to give up when things don't go the way you expect.”

20. Andrew: Can you describe a typical day? I work with a team of extremely talented physicists, computer scientists and engineers. Together, we look at the detectors that measure the way in which anti-matter interacts with the Earth. Our objective is to understand why we are here. In the Computing Sector, we design new software that can identify matter and anti-matter particles passing through our detector. First, I get an extra-large cup of coffee. I get a lot of questions from students and postdocs about our work, and often teach "mini-classes“ to one or two people about all sorts of topics. At 3:30 we take a coffee break. It's a good time to talk about what we have done and what we should do next. Afterwards, I like to sit down in my office alone and work on "great ideas" that I've had. They don't always work and aren't always "great," but they give me a chance to play around and try new things and make the experiments better. If I've lost track of time, the phone will ring around dinner time and my wife will tell me it’s time to come home.

21. Andrew: What advice would you give me to help me plan for my future in this career? “Never give up. Never stop asking questions.” “Even bad ideas can sometimes lead to brilliant discoveries.”

22. Andrew: Does your position require any specific skills? “To be a physicist, you need to have an extremely strong background in physics (for me it's a specialization in nuclear and particle physics), mathematics, computer programming and technical writing. Most physicists will have a bachelor's degree in physics or mathematics, and then a doctorate degree (Ph.D.) in physics.”

23. Gerard: Why did you choose this career? “As a kid I enjoyed building my own toys more than playing with them.” “When I realized that with a computer I could build my own ‘stuff,’ I became addicted to it. So when I came to choose my bachelor’s degree programs, I didn’t hesitate long before enrolling in computer science and engineering.”

24. Gerard: What is the most satisfying thing about your job? “Being able to see how ideas grow and evolve to solve challenging problems.” “As an IT professional, I no longer build ‘my toys’ on my own; there are many teams of talented people working on different bits and pieces, and at the end it all works like a well-oiled machine.”

25. Gerard: What personal characteristics does this job require? “You need to communicate with all of your colleagues to understand what they want to do and how they want to do it in order to find a proper solution.” “Curiosity” “Logical reasoning” “Determination”

26. Gerard: Can you describe a typical day? “I am in an operations position, and I help physicists to do their jobs. So, the first thing I do in the morning is look at the monitoring systems and my email. Once the most pressing matters are resolved (or in progress) then I focus on new requests and requirements, probably meeting some colleagues to discuss potential solutions to the problems we have to resolve.”

27. Gerard: What advice would you give me to help me plan for my future in this career? “Do some research and think about what you enjoy the most. Talk to people doing the job you think you may like, and picture yourself there.” “Once you know what you want to become, just work hard to get it.”

28. Gerard: Does your position require any specific skills? “Good knowledge of computer architecture (how computers work) and computer programming.”

29. Lisa: What is the most satisfying thing about your job? “I like being able to help people, and I also like the challenge of setting up processes and getting them to work.”

30. Lisa: What personal characteristics does this job require? “You have to be able to switch contexts quickly and efficiently, to deal with different areas of work.” “You need to be able to adjust rapidly to changing priorities.”

31. Lisa: Can you describe a typical day? “My hours are fairly flexible. When I come into work I read the emails and check the monitoring systems to see if anything needs to be fixed. If I am the on-call person for that week or if the systems with problems are mine, I fix them.” “After that, I work on larger projects that are in progress, such as upgrades, investigating new technologies or documentation. And I frequently need to help the users of the computers I manage.

32. Greg: Why did you choose this career? “The choice I made was to work at Fermilab, becoming a computer security expert came later.” “I started as a technician building the new Energy Saver ring (which later became the Tevatron). Over the next 35 years I worked on Unix and Windows computers in different roles, and I became very experienced in dealing with virus and malware incidents. All of that experience helps me in my current position as Fermilab Incident Response Coordinator in the Computing Sector’s Security Operations group.”

33. Greg: What is the most satisfying thing about your job? “Working with the Fermilab user community to keep the Fermilab network and computer environment safe.”

34. Greg: What personal characteristics does this job require? “Attention to detail.” “Good troubleshooting skills.” “Good interpersonal communication skills.”

35. Greg: Can you describe a typical day? “Every day is different for the Fermilab Computer Security team. We do many things, from working on computer security incidents to assessing assorted requests for exemption from particular computing policies for various reasons. ” “We monitor services and sensors working in the background to ensure that the Fermilab network remains safe.”

36. Greg: What advice would you give me to help me plan for my future in this career? “The best advice I can give for any computer-related job is to strive for hands-on experience. In addition to classes, you really need experience to become proficient and gain the knowledge you need to work in the computer security field.”

37. Greg: Does your position require any specific skills? “Yes, being very knowledgeable about computers and networks is a requirement. Strong communication skills are also important. You also need good analytical skills to troubleshoot many problems.”