Tuesday 15 March 2016 Martin Morris had a fairly stressful introduction to working at Google – on his first day at work he was faced with a power cut and some awkward questions from the co-founder of Google, Larry Page himself. That was in 2002 and fortunately for Martin, the power outage caused no lasting damage and he went on to spend a successful four years working at Google. During a visit to the computing society at The Grammar School at Leeds (GSAL), Martin dispensed some valuable advice to students who aspire to a career in IT and told them he hoped their first day at work would be less stressful than his had been. An old boy of Leeds Grammar School, Martin’s own route into computing was as a software engineer following a mechanical engineering degree, working first at an IT start-up in Bath in 1988 then moving to Oracle which sent him to work in the USA, where he is still based. After a period of working freelance he joined Google as the self-styled ‘Oracle Guy’ at a time of huge expansion for the company. With his wide-ranging experience, Martin had good advice for students during a Q&A session, from the skills to focus on in building a career in IT, to the pros and cons of working for a small company or a major organisation, and an insight into the culture and working conditions at Google. Martin was invited to the computing society by lower sixth student Sam Berson. Sam said: “Thanks to Martin we’ve seen what it’s like to work in a big company or the excitement of working in a start-up, and the skill set we need to develop, together with some fascinating predictions for the future of technology.” Martin is pictured with students (L-R) Sam Berson, Michael Shaw and Jake Stringer. General Senior School Sixth Form
