Marcus Lofton
By Zoë Eitel
At a DePaul Career Fair, Marcus Lofton was able to connect with Discover Financial Services. He was drawn in by the company’s culture and how much the employees clearly loved working there and decided to apply to an option position.
“I went in with a good attitude and was able to connect on a personal level with some interviewers and then after multiple rounds of interviews I received an offer,” he says.
Marcus works as an Associate Cloud Engineer at Discover for which he automates manual processes, monitors cloud infrastructure, and builds infrastructure using code.
Though Marcus started this job during the COVID-19 pandemic, he hasn’t found it difficult to transition into the new role, partially thanks to DePaul.
“I started taking online classes my senior year before the pandemic, so it was a smooth transition to me,” Marcus says. “I think DePaul was ahead of the curve with the option of being able to take classes online and in person, so I was well prepared.”
Associate Cloud Engineer at Discover Financial Services
BS Computer Science 2020
Marcus was drawn to DePaul for multiple reasons: the networking opportunities, the quarter system and the location. He also appreciated the ability to choose from different concentrations within the program.
“Computer Science is a broad field and being able to choose a specific area really helped me develop my technical skills faster.”
“Computer Science is a broad field and being able to choose a specific area really helped me develop my technical skills faster,” he says.
Getting his degree in Computer Science at DePaul started Marcus off on the right path into his career and prepared him for the industry. One of Marcus’ professors specifically helped him. Professor Olayele Adelakun mentored Marcus while he was in school and gave him a lot of advice and pointers that helped guide his decisions
“Talking to him made it clear to me what skills I needed in order to be successful in the industry,” Marcus says. “The first thing he told me is ‘anybody can code, but not everyone is a team player.’ Those words always stuck with me.”
Marcus completed six internships before he graduated. He started off doing simple HTML and CSS tasks for a nonprofit his freshman year and ended up at a large company taking on more significant projects by his senior year.
“Some of those internships I didn’t like, and some I met some amazing people that I still keep in contact with today,” he says. “You just have to get out there, try new things and see what happens.”
