Tuesday 15 March 2016 Martin Morris (OL83) 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. 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 lower sixth students (L-R) Sam Berson, Michael Shaw and Jake Stringer. Alumni
