Tyler Trussell, ‘09, is interviewing at Microsoft for a full-time position with a salary “approaching six figures.”
“Just coming out of college, that’s insane,” Trussell said. “(Programmers) get crazy signing bonuses because we’re in really high demand.
“When a business thinks they have a good programmer on the line, they’ll move mountains to get them to come into the company.”
Trussell, a computer science major at Washington University in St. Louis, knows first-hand how much businesses want grads with computer experience.
“I get contacted by headhunters all the time,” he said. Trussell’s friend, who has a marketing degree, is a business developer for a New York City firm. But when Trussell was an intern there, his salary was twice as much as his friend’s starting salary.
Trussell has spent the last two summers working as a web developer for Schoology, Inc., a Learning Management System.
Because of his background, he saved nearly two hours of labor for a sales team member at Schoology.
The man had been preparing market ing materials, removing hyperlinks and copying information into Excel by hand.
“I was able to write a script in 15 minutes that finished the work which may have taken him up to two hours,” he said.
Trussell was introduced to computer science in 10th grade at SCDS, when he took “Intro to Computer Programming.”
As a junior, Trussell took AP Computer Science and skipped his intro-level computer science course in college.
He also took “Intro to Video Game Programming” during his senior year.
“Having programmed for three years, the AP was easy as can be,” Trussell said.
