Garrett Gaw ’99 BS in Computer Science, will present a Department of Computer Science Colloquium lecture on Friday, March 29, 2024, from 3-4 p.m. in Rekhi 214 and via Zoom online meeting. A social hour will follow in Rekhi 218. Refreshments will be served.
The title of Gaw’s talk is, “A Wild Ride (so far).”
This talk is part of the Department of Computer Science alumni lecture series, “Our Golden Years: Behind Us, Or Still Ahead?”
Talk Abstract
I’ve been incredibly fortunate to work on over 100 different software development teams with 1 to 1000+ members in a dozen industries with countless types of people, technology, cultures, development methodologies, mechanisms, and goals. I’ve been the engineer, architect, designer, project manager, technical sales rep, consultant, VP, and CEO. Our teams have built global systems that scale to hundreds of millions of users and billions of transactions per second. Through this journey, I’ve had the opportunity to learn from some of the brightest and most effective engineers, scientists, designers, and managers. I’ve learned from successes and even more from failures and truly believe that paying it forward and helping others benefit from this wild ride is a crucial part of it all. In this talk I’ll share some of my experiences, successes and failures, patterns I’ve observed, and mental models that have worked for me – your milage may vary. There will also be Q & A.
Speaker Bio
Garrett Gaw ‘99 BS in Computer Science, is a technology executive with a diverse track record of 20+ years in software development. Throughout his career, Garret has made contributions to various industry sectors including automotive (GM/OnStar and Chrysler), publishing (Cengage Learning), eCommerce (Amazon), and entrepreneurial, starting his own software development consulting company.
In his current role as VP of Software Development at Amazon, Garret has built a global cross functional team that, over the past decade, has scaled the web, mobile, and API technology for the supply-side of their eCommerce businesses enabling its hyper-growth. He also founded Amazon’s Michigan corporate office and helped it grow from 3 to 700+ employees, 80% of which are technical; engineering, science, product tech, and UX. Garret is also on the MTU Computer Science External Advisory Board.