Hayden McCormick, MS'24, Computational Linguistics
Computational Linguist, JPMorganChase
December 8, 2025
Can you describe your career path and how it has led to your current work?
When I was first looking for colleges back in 2017, I had applied to UCLA with the understanding that I was going to study something related to art and digital design. By the time I was accepted, I realized that my interests were much stronger in tech and computer science, and on a whim I switched my major to “Linguistics & Computer Science” after a very introspective scroll through the course catalog. I’m so grateful that I stumbled into the field this way, since I had honestly never encountered the subject before -- but was completely hooked by the end of the program and excited to dive deeper in grad school.
I ended up choosing Brandeis after much research into similar programs, since the mix of theoretical research and industry preparation seemed extremely valuable to me. Unexpectedly, my interest in digital design was able to resurface during my work in James Pustejovsky’s lab, where I ended up spending much of my 2 years developing visualization and analysis software for NLP systems, and in my capstone project which gave me the opportunity to expand on these ideas in a very personal and fulfilling way. This, plus the fantastic coursework in NLP and ML techniques, very much laid the foundation for my Co-op position at Bose, then for my current role at Chase.
What does a typical day/week look like for you in this position?
My team is in charge of conversation analysis for the Chase app’s chatbot, meaning we’re responsible for analyzing the huge number of monthly customer conversations to find avenues for improvement. Because our work intersects with so many different teams, my days consist of a combination of hyper-specific analysis for specific projects and building out broader, more standardized solutions that enable colleagues to explore utterance patterns on their own. Like the field itself, the work is ever-evolving and moves quickly, which I find very gratifying.
Beyond this -- a lot of meetings!
What skills from your Brandeis degree have you found most valuable in your current work?
Honestly, it’s hard to even quantify this: I feel like the skills I developed during the program show up in every aspect of my day-to-day work. One thing that I’m very grateful for was the opportunity for independent exploration that the CLMS program offered. Because of all the many opportunities in lab work, course electives, and the exit requirement, I was able to really explore my more niche interests while still getting the benefits of the core NLP curriculum. The capstone project, especially, really strengthened my ability for self-driven research and technical work, and those skills have been incredibly helpful in making me a more proactive (and productive) analyst.
What advice do you have for current students as they embark on their career exploration or job search?
Once you get interviews (and you will get interviews), don’t forget that the hiring managers want you to be the right fit: they’re rooting for you. You went through this program, so you have plenty of relevant skills, and your job is just to communicate them as clearly as possible. And, of course, try not to be discouraged if it takes time! Personally, it took several months and hundreds of applications to find a good match... but one is all it takes!