Shelby Anderson is a system engineering manager with Sun Microsystems, working in their Boston, Massachusetts area office as part of the Enterprise Sales Division. This division was recently acquired by Sun from Cray Research and her team, most of which is located in Washington, DC, is made up of people with backgrounds that range from computer science to business/finance/marketing to geography.
"I manage a staff of systems engineers that provide technical support for Federal (US Government) sales opportunities nationwide," she says. "This support includes analyzing customers' high-performance computing requirements, proposing solutions to them, and running benchmarks. We are in the business of running customer application programs as fast as possible. Frequently, this requires analyzing the code to rework mathematical algorithms. A solid background in mathematics is essential to the optimization process."
Shelby has a B.S. in mathematics from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and an M.S. in applied mathematics from John Hopkins. She started working at Cray in 1984 immediately after she finished her bachelor's degree and in 1994 she completed a master's degree. Except for working for Booz-Allen & Hamilton for about a year in the early nineties, she was with Cray until Sun acquired her division in July 1996.
"One of my professors at Virginia Tech helped me land the job at Cray," she recalls. "I started at Cray as an on-site systems analyst, was promoted to analyst-in-charge, was promoted to pre-sales systems engineer, and then was promoted to systems engineering manager. I always loved math and supercomputing seemed to be a good fit for my skills. In 1984, Cray was hitting its stride and was a very exciting place to be. My current job requires technical skills, writing skills, and people skills; I'm never bored!"
Some of the areas of study Shelby finds valuable on her job include numerical analysis, probability and statistics, linear algebra, Fourier analysis, complex analysis, and C programming. She also mentions the value of courses in technical writing, business and marketing. "Make sure you're well-rounded. Just because you're analytical and mathematical, don't assume you won't need writing and/or people skills. People notice bad grammar and spelling! Double-major in math and computer science or business, if possible. Co-op or get summer internships in the industry."
To women interested in jobs in industry, she adds the following advice: "Be assertive; don't be afraid to ask questions and speak up. Don't be intimidated by aggressive people. Confront problems head-on; don't complain to people who can't fix whatever is wrong. Don't use the fact that you're a woman as a crutch. Get the job done efficiently and professionally and your sex won't matter."
