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Ask a Software Engineer: Airbnb Edition 🏡

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Ask a Software Engineer: Airbnb Edition 🏡
A Day in the Life of a Software Engineer (via Life of Luba)

With Airbnb came a revolution of sorts in the world of vacation travel and culture. We sat down with Luba Yudasina, a YouTuber, an opera singer, and a Software Engineer on the Airbnb’s Homes Platform team, to discuss software engineering and her programming journey—from Codecademy to Airbnb!

Hey Luba, let’s start with the basics! What does a Software Engineer on the Platform team do at Airbnb?

Homes Platform’s mission is to create the building blocks to power all Homes categories. Any project undertaken by our team should be reusable and extensible in some way. This means that as a backend engineer, I have a lot of opportunities to work on impactful technical projects that create systems and services to support Homes, as well as collaborate across teams to come up with the best architectural decisions and designs.

Recently, our team wrote a blog post on classifying Room Types into categories using Machine Learning and computer vision. The room-type classification problem largely resembles the ImageNet classification problem, except our team’s model outcomes are customized room-types.

After a few experiments with various models, the team chose ResNet50 due to its good balance between model performance and computation time. To make it compatible with our use case, we added two extra fully connected layers and a Softmax activation in the end.

Categorizing listing photos into room types (via the Airbnb Engineering & Data Science blog)

What languages/frameworks do you use at Airbnb?

At Airbnb we use Ruby, Java, Kotlin, JavaScript, Swift, Ruby on Rails, React for frontend, iOS and Android for native development.

Let’s rewind a little bit. Coming from a chemical engineering background in college, how did you make the switch into programming?

I went to the University of Waterloo in Canada—a university with the biggest co-op program in the world. Co-op means that to obtain a bachelor’s degree you must complete a certain number of internships. If you are in Engineering at Waterloo, you must complete 5 internships to graduate.

In my first and second years, I interned at chemical engineering companies and afterwards I couldn’t see myself working in the field full-time. That’s why I’m particularly grateful that I studied at Waterloo: if not for co-op, I probably would not have realized I didn’t want to work in chemical engineering until getting a full-time job after graduation.

I happened to have a lot of friends in Computer Science and Software Engineering right when I realized Chem Eng wasn’t for me. They really encouraged me to try coding, and when I decided to follow their lead I never looked back! My first online programming course was Web Development on Codecademy 🙂

“It’s a really cool time to be a software engineer and even cooler to be a female software engineer, because this is the time when women start to embrace their own unique identities and be ok with not being ‘one of the dudes.'”
-Luba Yudasina

How did you land an internship at Yelp?

When I decided I wanted to learn computer science on my own, my goal was to get an internship in the field because working as a software engineer at a tech company would be the best test to really know if it was for me.

I happened to be in Munich, Germany on academic exchange for a whole year when I was learning how to code, so I hustled as much as I could while being there to get experience to learn quicker and have something to put down on my tech resume.

Almost immediately after arriving in Germany, I got a part time job as a developer at a game publishing company. I had a good friend in Computer Science at my German university: her and I ended up working on an Android app as a side project, etc. When I was ready, I started preparing for technical interviews. I then leveraged my network to refer me to companies and do mock technical interviews with me.

Yelp was really random though—a Yelp recruiter looked at my LinkedIn profile and didn’t even message me, but I messaged them anyway asking about internship opportunities, and that’s how I got my interview there!

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Airbnb HQ in San Franciso

What is an essential app/item in your day-to-day?

Code searching! A lot of software engineering is problem solving and a lot of it is understanding other people’s code and the reasoning behind writing it a certain way. Searching through the codebases is almost essential to my day to day. Whenever I build something new or build on top of already existing tech, I need to understand how it works and is written, and code search is vital to this.

At Airbnb we use Google’s Codesearch for these purposes, but developers (myself included) also frequently use their IDEs to search for relevant code. I mostly use RubyMine or IntelliJ (depending on the codebase I’m working with).

In your videos, you’ve mentioned the intersection of gender and technology. Can you speak a bit more about that?

It’s a really cool time to be a software engineer and even cooler to be a female software engineer, because this is the time when women start to embrace their own unique identities and be ok with not being “one of the dudes.”

I think it’s particularly important to redefine the stereotypes, and I hope that with my own example I can show young girls and women interested in the field that you don’t have to give up your feminine side to be a software engineer and still be into fashion, or makeup, or art (I personally sing opera) and have other interests outside of coding and be successful in the field.

Before we wrap up, do you have anything else you would like to say to our learners?

Don’t be discouraged, learn and absorb as much as you can! If you don’t understand a concept or can’t build a project right away, know that with practice, perseverance and concentration you will get there!

Take advantage of such amazing tools as Codecademy that are there for you to take and learn. Learning anything new can be frustrating, but knowing that you can do it, staying curious, asking questions and not losing your motivation is the key to success.

Huge shoutout to Luba for this insightful interview. It’s always incredibly moving to see a Codecademy learner go on to do bigger things. Go subscribe to her YouTube channel, Life of Luba.

And thank you to the whole Homes Platform/Engineering team at Airbnb for the support. Check out their wonderful open source projects on airbnb.io.

Learning With: ‘The Hummingbird as Warrior: Evolution of a Fierce and Furious Beak’

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Learning With: ‘The Hummingbird as Warrior: Evolution of a Fierce and Furious Beak’

Before reading the article:

What do you know about hummingbirds? Have you ever seen one?

Quickly, think of some adjectives to describe hummingbirds.

Did your list include words like: colorful, sweet, melodious, graceful, small? How about fierce? Or aggressive? What about downright mean?

Next, watch the ScienceTake video “How the Hummingbird Bill Evolved for Battle,” above and respond to the following questions:

What did you notice about hummingbirds in this video? What stood out or surprised you about their behavior? What questions do you have about what is going on in this video? What more would you like to know?

Now, read the article, “The Hummingbird as Warrior: Evolution of a Fierce and Furious Beak,” and answer the following questions:

1. Why does James Gorman, the author, start the article with a poem? And why does he say “it’s best to avoid most poetry” about hummingbirds?

2. Why have do poets and scientists have a “blind spot” about the hummingbirds in nature? How did the Aztecs differ in their understanding of the colorful bird?

3. How have hummingbird beaks evolved over time? What are the benefits of their design?

4. What are some of the highlights of the 10 years of research on hummingbirds by Alejandro Rico-Guevara and his colleagues at the University of California?

5. What are some of the ways the hummingbird uses its bill to fight off rival males?

6. What other aspects of the hummingbird’s design and behavior are being studied by scientists? Which did you find most interesting?

Finally, tell us more about what you think:

— What did you learn about hummingbirds from the article? What was most fascinating? Does the video and article make you more curious about hummingbirds — or birds in general? What would you like to know more about?

— What have been your experiences with birds? Do you have a favorite type? Does the article make you view birds differently? If so, how?

— Mr. Gorman writes:

The Aztecs loved war, and they loved the beauty of the birds as well. It seems they didn’t find any contradiction in the marriage of beauty and bloodthirsty aggression.

Do you agree with the Aztec’s view of the hummingbird? Can you think of other animals that combine beauty and fierceness?

— The article begins with a poem by John Vance Cheney and ends with one by D.H. Lawrence. Which do you think is more accurate? What is your favorite line in either, and why?

— Write an original poem about hummingbirds. It can be of any length or style and can celebrate or disapprove of the beautiful but complicated bird?

How Do You Define ‘Family’?

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How Do You Define ‘Family’?

Is your definition of a “normal family” two married parents and their biological children living together under one roof? If not, what do you think a “family” is — or can be? Who is your family?

What do you think holds a family together? Is it biological relationships? Love and support? Sharing the same home?

In “What’s a ‘Normal’ Family, Anyway?” Claire Haug writes:

It’s a typical Thursday night and my family is gathered in the kitchen of my childhood home. There’s me, freshly returned from college, helping my mom set the table; my half brother, also home on break, debating our father about politics; and my half siblings’ mother chiding my half sister for Snapchatting with her high school friends.

If it took you a minute to process the relationships I just described, don’t worry — you are far from the only one. I’ll give my best simplified description of our family: my mother, my half siblings’ mother and our father were friends living in the Bay Area in the ’90s. At the time, both women were in their 30s and wanted to have children — but neither had a long-term partner. My father, a gay man and also partnerless, agreed to be their donor and, if things worked out, involved in their children’s lives.

My brother was born in March 1997, followed by me in October of the same year, and my half sister came along three years later. As a child I got strange looks when I told people that my brother was seven months older than me. But I just thought of us as a family that happened to live in three separate households.

Even growing up in Berkeley, Calif., which is generally known for being culturally diverse and politically progressive, my family structure has struck people as unconventional. I’ve had trouble explaining it to just about everyone, including friends I’ve known for years and financial aid administrators. It seems hard for people to get that you can have a family with parents who were never married, and that some women might choose to conceive and raise a child without a husband.

But unconventional families like mine are becoming increasingly common: the number of two-parent households has been in steady decline since the 1960s, dropping from 87 percent of households in 1960 to 69 percent in 2014, according to the Pew Research Center. The report notes that “the declining share of children living in what is often deemed a ‘traditional’ family has been largely supplanted by the rising shares of children living with single or cohabiting parents.”

She continues:

Family should be, above all else, about love — I hope we can all agree on that. Perhaps it’s time for us to prioritize finding love through community and friendships in the same way many of us prioritize finding romantic love. Maybe one day that will be conventional.

Students, read the entire article, then tell us:

— What does “family” mean to you? Do you count only those bound to you by blood or legal ties, or do friends or other kinds of communities also fill some of the traditional role of family for you?

— Who is your family, however you define that word? What role does your family play in your life in general?

— Ms. Haug writes:

But can anyone really say their experience of family was perfect? My parents have shown me that friendships can be just as important as romantic relationships, and that it’s possible to live a fulfilling life without defining your life by a single long-term relationship. How could that be bad?

Do you agree? Do you think friendships can be just as important as romantic relationships? Should having a single long-term relationship be the universal goal for living a fulfilling life?

— Does society need a more expansive definition of “family,” in your opinion? Why or why not?

Students 13 and older are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public.

Book Covers

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Book Covers

Yes, we’re inviting you to judge your books by their covers.

What are your favorites? Why? Consider books read to you as a child, books you have been assigned for school, and books you’ve read on your own. Which have the best covers? How well do those cover illustrations capture the essence of that book’s ideas, themes, characters, setting, plot or tone?

Tell us about your favorites in the comments, then read a related article, “How a Book Gets to the Perfect Cover.”

Find many more ways to use our Picture Prompt feature in this lesson plan.

Word + Quiz: fetid

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Word + Quiz: fetid

Note: Our Sixth Annual 15-Second Vocabulary Video Challenge is underway. It will run until Feb. 18.

: offensively malodorous; having a bad smell

_________

The word fetid has appeared in 26 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year, including on Sept. 21 in “In Sweden, Trash Heats Homes, Powers Buses and Fuels Taxi Fleets” by Amy Yee:

LINKOPING, Sweden — In a cavernous room filled with garbage, a giant mechanical claw reaches down and grabs five tons of trash. As a technician in a control room maneuvers the spiderlike crane, the claw drops its moldering harvest down a 10-story shaft into a boiler that is hotter than 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit. A fetid odor emanates from plastic trash bags discarded by hundreds of thousands of homes.

The process continues 24 hours a day to help fuel this power plant run by Tekniska Verken, a municipal government company in Linköping, a city 125 miles south of Stockholm. It is one of Sweden’s 34 “waste-to-energy” power plants. Instead of burning coal or gas, this power plant burns trash.

_________

Film Club: ‘The Dispossessed’

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Film Club: ‘The Dispossessed’

What responsibility do we have to help those around us?

“The Dispossessed” is a seven-minute film that touches on themes of healing, faith and helping others. It profiles Mohammed Shafi Hazari, a traditional faith healer in Kashmir, who exorcises patients who believe they’ve been possessed. But amid the backdrop of violent conflict, he more often lends his services to treat another malady that plagues his neighbors: depression.

Students

1. Watch the short film above. While you watch, you might take notes using our Film Club Double-Entry Journal (PDF) to help you remember specific moments.

2. After watching, think about these questions:

• What moments in this film stood out for you? Why?

• Were there any surprises? Anything that challenged what you know — or thought you knew?

• What messages, emotions or ideas will you take away from this film? Why?

• What other questions do you have?

3. An additional challenge: What connections can you make between this film and your own life or experience? Why? Does this film remind you of anything else you’ve read or seen? If so, how and why?

4. Next, join the conversation by clicking on the comment button and posting in the box that opens on the right. (Students 13 and older are invited to comment, although teachers of younger students are welcome to post what their students have to say.)

5. After you have posted, try reading back to see what others have said, then respond to someone else by posting another comment. Use the “Reply” button or the @ symbol to address that student directly.

6. To learn more, read “The Dispossessed.” Musa Syeed writes:

As I filmed Mr. Hazari, I initially wanted to know after each treatment: exorcism or placebo? I wanted him to confirm something spectacular was happening. But as I watched patients eager to feel the healing in his breath, his hand, his dull knife, I bit my tongue. Here was a man who amid conflict and violence invites strangers to sit with him, to listen to their problems, to offer some hope that, together, they might solve them. And what do you call that, other than a miracle?

_________

More?

• See all the films in this series.

• Read our list of practical teaching ideas, along with responses from students and teachers, for how you can use these documentaries in the classroom.

• Our next Film Club will take place on Thursday, Feb. 14.

Graduation Day: The Students of Food and Nutrition

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Graduation Day: The Students of Food and Nutrition

It was a Wednesday afternoon in December, when the students of La Trobe’s Bachelor of Food and Nutrition put on their graduation gowns, preparing for the handover of their long-awaited prize. Family and friends buzzed around the campus grounds, laughing, shaking hands and offering endless supplies of heartfelt hugs.

Two graduates smilingThere’s few prouder days in a person’s life than graduation day – the culmination of years of hard work and dedication. Nobody said university would be easy, but this group of young students pulled through. A number of them are planning postgraduate study, with their sights set on a career in dietetics. The atmosphere was overflowing with optimism and excitement for the future.

Graduate receiving award

The Bachelor of Food and Nutrition is available exclusively online through Open Universities Australia, and only started running a few years ago. These graduates are the first to gain this degree, paving the way for future online students, whose lifestyles call for a more flexible study arrangement, but with the same high-quality learning. While online study may have felt foreign in the beginning, the students embraced the technology, and came out on the other side, successful, and equipped for the workforce.

Graduate smiling

To these bright young graduates, we say congratulations, and best of luck. We’re confident that you’ll bring into the health industry your expertise, commitment and passion.

Food for thought: The role of educators and employers in getting people ready for the world of work

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Food for thought: The role of educators and employers in getting people ready for the world of work

Author: Stephen Somerville, MD, Government & Employers at FutureLearn

This month, FutureLearn hosted its inaugural Employment Breakfast Briefing with a focus on how we — collectively — can bridge the skills gap. Last year, a Bloomberg Next and Workday survey asked if business and academia were meeting the skills gap challenge, and what areas they might need to refine or rethink to improve outcomes. The research incorporated the views of 200 senior-level individuals — 100 each in academia and business — focusing on four primary themes: preparedness, skills, collaboration, and planning. The results identified a number of issues. A majority of respondents said new hires are not well-prepared to perform at a high level in a professional environment, primarily because of insufficient soft skills. In addition, a surprising number of organisations were found to lack formal plans and budgets for addressing the impact of emerging technologies; and business and academia were not thought to be collaborating as actively and effectively as they could be in preparing students for employment and reskilling individuals already in the workforce.

Part of the challenge comes in the form of some pretty big — almost philosophical — questions; the answers to which might not be universally agreed on. What, for instance, is the purpose of education? Is it solely a vehicle to getting people a job? And does responsibility for preparing people for the workplace primarily fall to educators or employers? Then of course comes the question: what is it that employers actually want? Do they think any skills are particularly lacking? Or hugely important?

Considerations around bridging the skills gap can produce more questions than answers. But one thing that can be agreed upon is the shared responsibility of this task. There are some fine examples of this joined-up approach to tackling the skills gap that we can look to for inspiration. The National Centre for Computing Education, for example, is a £78 million DfE-funded project, that will be established and run by a consortium comprising Raspberry Pi Foundation, Stem Learning and the British Computer Society. The centre believes that through a combination of online and face-to-face training for teachers, we can realise the ambition of “every child in every school in England having a world-leading computing education.” FutureLearn, for its part, will be the destination for all of the initiative’s online learning, with plans afoot to create 35 courses aimed at upskilling teachers on the frontline of computing education.   

The Institute of Coding (IoC) is another good example. Counting FutureLearn among its partners, The IoC is a collaboration between the UK Government, more than 60 universities, big players in the tech industry, SMEs, industry groups, experts in non-traditional learning and professional bodies. Led by the University of Bath, the world-leading consortium aims to strengthen the UK’s position globally in computing and IT, address the UK digital skills gap and create opportunities for more computer science graduates.

From the point of view of educators, perhaps at least part of the challenge stems from the fact that the skills shortage we are now faced with doesn’t have a natural remedy within traditional education. ‘Soft skills’ — so long thought of as the poor relation to hard skills — despite encompassing things like: team-working skills; coordinating and collaborating with others; analytical reasoning/critical thinking; complex problem-solving; agility and adaptability; ethical judgment and decision-making; aren’t necessarily taught in schools or universities. Equally, and with the best will in the world, it is hard for conventional curriculums to make provision for all the latest developments in technology when advancements are taking place at such speed.

Then of course there is the more longitudinal view and broader societal changes. Last year, for instance, it was reported in The Guardian that more than six million workers are worried their jobs could be replaced by machines over the next decade. The finding prompted Yvette Cooper MP,  to outline the collaborative approach needed between politicians, unions and business, to ensure “everyone benefits” from the proliferation of automation.  Government and business certainly have a role to play (as we’ve seen from the above), but so too do educators, who must be part of the conversation. In many ways, online learning provides educators with the perfect platform.

Indeed, with the examples of soft skills and digital upskilling in mind, we see the advantages of online learning crystallising. FutureLearn, for example, has a whole suite of courses dedicated to soft skills, which can be viewed here, and a number of partners providing digital skills courses that can count towards employees’ continuous professional development.

There are no quick fixes and the conversation needs to be ongoing, but if we are to get people ready for the workplace and help plug the skills gap in the process, we’re going to need a collective effort from educators and employers. One that begins in schools and continues throughout a working life committed to continuous professional development.

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Research insights

Why is teaching English important?

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Why is teaching English important?

English is still the universal language

Estimates vary about how many people speak English worldwide, but some believe English-speakers are likely to number in the billions. English crosses cultures, countries and industries. It’s often used as a ‘common tongue’ if neither person is a native speaker. This means teaching people English can be truly rewarding: students of English have many new opportunities and doors open to them thanks to their skills.

The internet is English

About half of homepages on the internet are in English and as of 2016 the English edition of Wikipedia contains the most articles. If you want full use of the web (without lots of translation work), English is key. Plus internet use is now an important and necessary part of many jobs (and much of daily life). Helping people learn English means helping them take full advantage of the power of the web.

English can take you to amazing places

As well as opening up exciting new avenues for students, being able to teach English can also offer language teachers new opportunities. With TEFL qualifications teachers can travel far and wide sharing their knowledge and exploring new corners of the globe, with places like the UAE,  Dubai and China offering high salaries as well as new cultures.

Do you want to improve your English language teaching? Take a look at our courses to help you teach English or browse all Teaching courses.

Entrepreneurs we admire

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Entrepreneurs we admire

Shaun Pulfrey, Inventor of the Tangle Teezer

Hair colourist Shaun Pulfrey was mocked by senior business figures when he appeared on British TV show ‘Dragon’s Den’ with an unusual looking hairbrush designed to detangle hair painlessly. Each of the business leaders on the show turned down his request for investment. Unfortunately for them, almost a decade later, Tangle Teezers are sold in over 70 countries. In 2015, the company reported a turnover of over £23 million.

Computer science can often seem opaque, putting potential coders and engineers off what could be a rewarding and interesting career. Luckily Amy Bibwo is on hand to help demystify computer science. Her ‘zines are aimed at people who might not have considered coding before. Using clever stories and hand drawn art these zines break down typically complex concepts, to help get young people, particularly young women, excited about computer science.

Naomi Alderman, Co-developer of Zombies! Run!

Primarily known for her writing, Naomi Alderman might seem like an unlikely addition to our list, but she’s also the co-creator of the running app (and phenomenon) Zombies! Run! The app improves your fitness by having you run away from zombies through all sorts of different storylines. It tapped into people’s desire to improve their fitness in a fun (and scary) way – when it launched it became the the highest grossing fitness app on Apple’s app store.

Paul Sinton-Hewitt, Founder of Parkrun

Continuing on the running theme, next up we having the founder of a worldwide grassroots sports movement Paul Sinton-Hewitt, creator of Parkrun. Parkrun is a free, timed 5k run that takes place in parks all over the world. Sinton-Hewitt founded it in 2004 looking for a more easy-going alternative to club running. 10 years later, Parkrun has a community of over a million runners and happens in 543 parks worldwide. You can read more about how it got started here.

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