Green River grad Quentin Guenther talks life as a Software Engineer at Expedia
By: Andy Orr
Tags: Community College, Student Success, Career Advice, Applied Baccalaureate

Green River grad Quentin Guenther talks life as a Software Engineer at Expedia Andy Orr Follow Nov 9 · 3 min read

Green River College graduate Quentin Guenther

Meet Green River College graduate Quentin Guenther. After completing his Bachelor’s degree in Software Development, Guenther, Class of 2019, joined Expedia Group as a Software Engineer. In the Q and A below, he talks about life at Expedia and shares helpful career tips for college students.

First off, what led you to Green River’s Software Development program?

QUENTIN: When I first enrolled in college I was in the biochemistry field, while working in the field I found myself writing many small scripts to speed up my processes. After awhile of optimizing these scripts I found my interests greatly leaning toward writing large scale software as a career. I found Green River’s applied baccalaureate program to match my interests, as the courses gear you to take a deep dive into making real-world software, opposed to focusing on theoretical principles.

What is your current job title at Expedia and what team do you work with?

QUENTIN: I am a Software Engineer based with the Brand Expedia Checkout technology teams. In my role, I leverage several amazing technologies including Java (Spring), Kotlin, Scala, React, and NodeJS in developing Expedia’s Checkout technologies. To complement these development technologies I also work heavily in Dev Ops, helping Expedia understand the users experience through monitoring and telemetry, and aiding the developer’s experience by automating deployment processes.

What is the culture at Expedia like?

QUENTIN: Expedia is innovative at all levels of the company and is concentrated on helping users achieve their goals.

Is there a particular course at Green River that especially prepared you for success in your current role?

QUENTIN: It’s hard for me to pick one course that had the most impact on me. Beyond the Capstone project I would choose the Design Patterns and Software Maintenance courses. Both of these courses together helped me start thinking of how large projects are designed and developed.

What piece of advice do you have for college students who are currently looking for work?

QUENTIN: From a technical perspective, I believe the most basic starting point for college students is to have a strong background in Data Structures / Algorithms as the idea of “leet code” style questions to be the first gate into a company. After this, having foundational knowledge about how enterprises scale their code bases and traffic.

I would usually recommend attending your favorite technologies User Group and chat with the other developers who attend, however; while I’m writing this we are dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic and this may not be possible for many of you reading this. Thankfully, there are still many excellent virtual ways to connect to other developers, such as Slack groups, forums, or getting involved in open source projects. An open source project is a great way to learn and get some real world experience, this involves; digging into their code, understanding how it works, understanding why it is written the way it is, and contributing to a project greater than yourself.

Finally, I would like to leave with this to help you strive for greatness: “Living with fear stops us taking risks, and if you don’t go out on the branch, you’re never going to get the best fruit.” — Sarah Parish