by Christian Stafford

For Will Slotterback, a fourth-year computer science and entrepreneurship combined major from San Francisco, California, how he landed his current co-op position at customer support software company, Zendesk, proves exactly why networking opportunities are important and useful to helping one’s career path. For Slotterback, his current co-op position was gained in part thanks to his mom’s dedication to exercise.

“My mom does an exercise boot-camp in San Francisco, and back in 2015 she met the wife of Zendesk’s Head of Product, Adrian McDermott,” Slotterback said. “At some point my mom (as moms do) vastly overstated my abilities while mentioning the fact that I was looking for an internship, and I ended up getting to meet with Adrian.”

According to Slotterback, Zendesk usually only hires interns in their junior year or later. In 2015, while only in his sophomore year, Slotterback said he wasn’t really ready, but he and McDermott kept in contact until Slotterback’s third year when he re-sent McDermott his resume.

“After a phone screen and an interview where Zendesk flew me out to San Francisco for the day, I got the job!”

After finding his first time working at the company enjoyable, Slotterback was able to secure an additional, second co-op position at Zendesk, this time in their Copenhagen office where he has been enjoying the experience ever since.

The rigor of classes, especially in CCIS, has taught Slotterback good time management skills, which has been extremely helpful for him at work, he said. Slotterback also cites an anthropology class as very useful in helping him apply classroom skills to his work at Zendesk.

“I took an anthropology course last semester, which required us to write a research paper every other week and that really sharpened my writing skills. Good software development surprisingly requires a ton of writing, so that course was especially helpful,” he said.

At Zendesk, Slotterback primarily works as a front-end web developer responsible for implementing the web interface that Zendesk’s customers use every day.

A Dean’s list recipient, Slotterback said his interest in web design pushed him to become a member of Scout, Northeastern’s student-led design studio. Additionally, he has served within CCIS as a tutor for Fundies 2, a fellow for Overview 1, and he enjoys competing on Northeastern’s club soccer team.

Out of the many CCIS classes Slotterback has taken, he said that Object-Oriented Design would have to be his favorite, citing the final project as a reason.

“The class was really difficult, and contributed to many sleepless nights for me, but the final project was the first time I felt like I’d written a relatively non-trivial piece of software, and that was a very empowering feeling,” he said.

Serving as the only co-op student among Zendesk’s team of 2,000 employees, Slotterback said that he hopes his presence will pave the way for more Northeastern students to join the company’s team in San Francisco and Copenhagen.