Gayle Laakmann McDowell

Gayle Laakmann McDowell (born 1982) is a software engineer and author.

Career

After working as a software engineer for Google she joined a small venture capital-funded startup company as the Vice President (VP) of engineering before being awarded a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. McDowell subsequently founded her own business, CareerCup.com, which helps people prepare for interviews at big tech companies. A followup was published in 2025 covering issues in recruitment, job hunting and behavioral interviews alongside material on big O notation, leetcode, algorithms and data structures called Beyond Cracking the Coding Interview.

McDowell has also co-authored the books Cracking the PM Interview (for product managers: PMs), Cracking the PM career and Cracking the Tech Career. Mainstream media coverage of her work include articles in The New York Times, The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, U.S. News & World Report, and Fast Company.

McDowell gave the commencement speech at the University of Pennsylvania School of Engineering and Applied Science Masters graduation in 2016.