Database Reference
In-Depth Information
Gutierrez:
Tell me about your journey to becoming head of Search Quality
at LinkedIn.
Tunkelang:
I was lucky to have an early exposure to both math and com-
puter science. My dad taught me programming, as well as a bit of math and
physics when I was still in elementary school. I also had great math teachers at
school, which allowed me to take lots of math and computer science classes
at Columbia University while I was attending high school a block away.
Then I went to MIT for college, where I double-majored in math and com-
puter science, and also picked up a master's in computer science as part of a
program that included internships at the IBM T. J. Watson Research Center.
Going to MIT is, as they say, like taking a drink from a fire hose. I was able
to take extraordinary classes in probability, combinatorics, and game theory,
among many others.
I then went to CMU for my PhD in computer science, where I enrolled in a
program called Algorithms, Combinatorics, and Optimization. This interdisci-
plinary program emphasized the facets of computer science that overlap with
math and operations research. I learned a huge amount from my classes, and
even more from my peers. I considered doing a dissertation on optimizing
shared-ride transportation, but ultimately ended up developing a system for
network visualization. Little did I imagine at the time that someday I'd be working
at the company that provides the world's largest professional network!
When I finished my dissertation at the end of 1998, I had some soul-searching
to do. I realized that I wasn't cut out for a career in academia, but that I really
didn't know what industry had to offer. I worked a few months at a consulting
firm, getting my first taste of a nonacademic, nonresearch job.
My lucky break was being discovered by the co-founders of Endeca in 1999
and enlisted as chief scientist. My ten years there were an extraordinary
adventure. Our initial ambition was to build a better way to find stuff on eBay.
Like most startups, we pivoted, and we ultimately developed technology that
revolutionized the search experience for online retail, as well as expanding
into other domains like manufacturing, business intelligence, and government.
After Endeca, I went to Google, where I worked on improving local search
quality. Specifically, I led a team that matched the local search index against
the web index to establish the official home pages of local businesses. It was a
fun machine learning problem, and there was something very rewarding about
improving the search experience on the world's most popular web site.
But when LinkedIn reached out to me in late 2010 with the opportunity to
lead and build a data science team, it was an offer I couldn't refuse.
