GARY SHENG.

New York, NY

I am currently working to build amazing user experiences for Cloud SQL users.

Los Angeles & New York

Dancing Pineapple curates electronic music and hosts fun, intimate concerts in New York and Los Angeles. Our goal is to share music and experiences that make people happy. Our Live Showcase Series in NYC is a recurring concert series whose proceeds go entirely to charity.

Durham, North Carolina

Duke presented unprecedented scale and diversity of opportunity. My four years of phenomenal professors across the disciplines pushed me to expand, challenge, and adjust my worldview. My experience dancing with DefMo showed me the power of empathetic leadership and expanded my artistic comfort zone. My tenure throwing major, campus-wide events validated that quality stems from attention to detail. My junior fall semester abroad at London's UCL humbled me to explore my place in the world. My engagement in Duke's tech & innovation initiatives exercised my creative muscle, sparked my obsession with design, and strengthened my tolerance to adversity.

Duke showed me what I love to do, gifted me with a love for learning, and surrounded me with a wealth of inspiring peers.

New York, NY

This summer was a rite of passage into software engineering professionalism. Google's crash-course seminars opened my eyes to fields I never knew existed. The test-driven culture taught me that time invested in writing tests is time well spent. Developers and designers blew me away with their willingness to share their time and wisdom. The trust my teammates placed in me did wonders for my confidence in writing quality software. I continue to be inspired by this company today.

Palo Alto, California

Flipboard taught me to surround myself with people who pushed me to my limits. The summer hacking alongside brilliant engineers, shadowing masterful designers, and helping direct projects laid the foundation for my software-engineering career. I'm grateful for the time I spent with these folks, whose work gave me a glimpse into the challenges and rewards of a startup employee's life.

Kunshan, Jiangsu Province, China

Duke gave me the opportunity to travel to China as their ambassador (and its then under-construction China campus), with the mission of strengthening Duke's ties with the Kunshan locality. Energizing discussions with both local government and DKU officials awakened me to Duke's potential to transform Kushan into an international intellectual hotspot. Working at the city's Industrial Technology Research Institute afforded me opportunities to explore the inner-workings of leading Chinese startups. The trip to China, which included visits to several Chinese cities, deepened my appreciation for my Chinese heritage.

San Francisco, CA

I was the first, lucky intern to work with Pocket's small, brilliant team. During these couple of months, I designed user action analytics reports, wrote SQL queries, implemented a few initiatives to guide product launches using A/B test results, designed Google Analytics dashboards, aided with community support, and participated in the product design process. This startup crash-course of a summer flooded me with opportunities to osmose bits of wisdom from founders, engineers, investors, and other visionaries of the Valley.

Aurora, IL

I'm grateful for these three years away from home. IMSA was where I was able to learn how to articulate my ideas (as head of the school newspaper), compete thrice in state championships (as tennis captain), engage in independent study opportunities that sparked a curiosity for mathematics, facilitate impactful service events for the local community, design a leadership development program for underclassmen, and discover a passion for the arts.