This week, I spoke to Mick O'Hanlon II, a 2020 UVA alum who’s a previous Senior Health IT Software Engineer at MITRE and currently working at a startup called Pivotal Health AI.
The Rundown:
COLD OPEN: E-School major fair to government funded projects
TURNING POINT: Earning credibility as a newer leader
STEAL THIS: Getting people to talk about themselves
INDUSTRY INSIDER: The CDC does more than what hits the headlines
IF I WERE YOU: Why you should keep on learning
COLD OPEN
How Did You Get Your Start?
Growing up, I always enjoyed building things, so I chose to be an engineering major at UVA. I attended a lot of the E-school major exploration nights and found biomedical engineering fascinating.
It was building in a way that had tangible impacts on people, which drew me to it.
Originally I thought I’d work in medical devices, but after taking some computer science classes, I became more interested in coding.
I ended up majoring in biomedical engineering and minoring in computer science. That combo led me to my first job at MITRE.
MITRE is a not-for-profit that runs federally funded research and development centers (FFRDCs) for the U.S. government. They act as an objective, independent partner, helping tackle complex national challenges by bringing together expertise from across government, industry, and academia. A lot of the work focuses on forward-looking, cutting-edge systems and engineering projects that support critical missions.
I applied and was accepted for an internship as a health IT software developer between my 3rd and 4th year.
I had a great experience, got a return offer, and decided to go back full time.
That led me to spend the first 5 years of my professional career at MITRE, where I worked on a number of projects for agencies including the CDC and FDA, mainly building open source data-driven healthcare technology.
Earlier this year, I moved on to join a startup, Pivotal Health AI, which is also using data to solve problems in the healthcare space. But I look back fondly to my experiences at MITRE, and credit MITRE with jumpstarting my passion towards working on small teams to make big differences in healthcare technology.
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TURNING POINT
What’s A Challenge You Faced Early On?
One of the biggest challenges early on was learning how to manage others.
As I gained experience, I became a technical lead on one of my projects, gaining responsibility for the engineering direction of the product we were building. I had to lead team members who had been at the company longer than me, and had more technical experience than me, which was an adjustment, especially coming out of college.
Figuring out how to navigate that dynamic and build trust took some time.
FOLLOW UP: How Did You Manage Those Relationships?
The main principle I followed was always asking for advice and making sure everyone's opinion is heard. I realized there were many topics where others would have far more acquired knowledge than I would as an early-career professional. Asking a lot of questions helps in those situations.
Also, you need to get to know people before you can have any sort of professional relationship with them, let alone manage them. Taking the time to get to know everyone’s strengths made it much easier to delegate tasks in a way that played to those strengths and helped the team work more effectively.
STEAL THIS
What’s A Question You Love To Be Asked (Or Asking)?
I love to ask people “What do you enjoy doing outside of work?”
It gets people away from a scripted answer and talking about themselves in a fun and engaging way.
It also allows you to connect if you have similar interests.
INDUSTRY INSIDER
What Do People Misunderstand About Government Funded Projects?
People may not understand how many facets government agencies cover.
There are a lot of projects that don’t make the headlines.
For example, the CDC leads a project I worked on where MITRE is building cervical cancer prevention tech for doctors. That’s one example, but representative of the kind of niche things most people aren’t aware of.
Also, the healthcare field has lagged behind in the past 10-20 years in terms of data standardization. There’s a lot of room for innovation and improvement, as there is so much that can be learned from this valuable healthcare data.
You’re seeing a ton of rising healthcare startups in tech. I think a large part is people are noticing there's work to be done in this space.
IF I WERE YOU
Do You Have Any Advice For Students?
Always keep learning. I’ve found this pretty powerful in my career.
I didn’t start off with deep computer science knowledge, but through continuing to learn, I’ve been able to develop a strong skillset in that area.
Especially with the rise of AI-assisted tools, if you’re not willing to adapt and learn new things, you’re going to fall behind.
CLOSING TIME
What To Do Next
Reading is great — but putting yourself out there, meeting new people, and finding opportunities is what this is all about.
4 things to do right now:
Find a UVA alum and send them a cold message.
Follow up in a week if they don’t respond.
Prepare for the meeting, and talk to them
Explore a new industry:
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