Valentin Mercier

In the spring of 2017, Valentin Mercier arrived in Boston with two major goals. The first was to obtain an M.S. in Computer Information Systems at Boston University Metropolitan College (BU MET) through the degree pathway program. The second was to get hired by one of the Silicon Valley giants. By the time he graduated from BU MET at the end of the summer, he’d accomplished both goals.

“BU is one of the most prestigious universities in the world,” Mercier explains, “and the fact that it was in the United States helped me get visibility from companies like Google and Amazon, where I interviewed. As soon as I arrived at BU, I could meet people working there at career fairs and meetups, and that really helped me create a network that eventually led me to interview for those companies.”

Before arriving in Boston, Mercier had already obtained a master’s degree in computer science at ECE Paris – Graduate School of Engineering, one of BU MET International’s institutional partners. He’d also co-founded two startups: Smart Pap, which he describes on LinkedIn as “Uber for students and tutors in France,” and HutWorks, which was designed “to build from scratch, monetize and sell high traffic websites.” Mercier has since sold both of his startups.

While at BU, Mercier learned valuable technical and human lessons. “The most important one,” he says, “was to trust myself, even when it is not obvious. That led me to pass Google’s interview.” He particular enjoyed the cloud computing class taught by Dr. Dino Konstantopoulous, which he describes as captivating, advanced and high quality. Any free time Mercier had while studying in Boston was spent working on his startups, preparing for job interviews, playing squash and hanging out with fellow students.

Mercier now lives in Switzerland and works as a G Suite software engineer for Google. He enjoys working on projects that positively impact millions of people, and hopes to play a role in how artificial intelligence improves and shapes our lives in the future.

“Most importantly,” says Mercier, “I want to put my skills to good use to make the world a better place.”