I recently resigned from my role at Google after four years (technically 20 days short of that) and so I wanted to take a moment to pause reflect on my time there. You can see previous updates for my 3rd year, 2nd year, 1st year and upon deciding to join. To start, I should be clear, that I’m >50% sure that I’ll work for Google again at some point in my career and I currently have a 7.5% chance assigned to me being the CEO at some point. Google is a great company and has many productive years ahead of it. My leaving Google is less about me leaving and more about me being lured away. I wasn’t looking to leave (in fact, I was setup for another few years of fast-paced growth) but a company reached out and made me an offer I wasn’t able to turn down (more

I recently finished my third year at Google and so I wanted to take a chance to reflect on what I’ve learned and see how I’m progressing along the goals I set for myself when I joined. You can see previous updates for my 2nd year, 1st year and upon deciding to join. Things I’ve Learned During Three Years at Google 1. Things can Change Very Quickly or Very Slowly My first two years at Google were pretty stable in terms of the team around me and our mission. Our team grew a lot, which meant new people were joining the team, but there was very little attrition, especially from my management chain. My third year was a completely different story. In a period of six months I experienced churn in my SVP, VP, Director, manager, ENG manager counterpart, ENG TL, and TPM counterpart. I would have a hard time

I recently finished my second year at Google and so I wanted to take a chance to reflect on what I’ve learned and see how I’m progressing along the goals I set for myself when I joined. Things I’ve Learned During Two Years at Google 1.By Year Two, You’re A Veteran It seems a bit crazy, but in only two years, I’ve now been at the company longer than most of the folks I interact with. I’m the expert in my domain. It seems like just yesterday I was starting out, looking at a list of names my manager sent me and scheduling meetings with these folks to basically say ‘hi, I’m new and I think we will work together’. Now on a weekly basis new folks join and I’m on their list of names. 2. Credibility Is Earned Much In the Same Way Everywhere I’ve spent my whole career

I recently finished my first year at Google and so I wanted to take a chance to reflect on what I’ve learned and see how I’m progressing along the goals I set for myself when I joined. Things I’ve Learned During My First Year at Google 1. Google is Still a Startup When I joined I wasn’t sure what the company would feel like and how things would work. Would it feel like a big company where everything had lots of process? Would I be able to get things done at the pace I enjoy or would the overhead slow me down? What I’ve found is that generally, in both good and bad ways, the day to day work of my project area still feels like a startup. It took me some time discover that but I now feel like I have a decent read and have been able to

Last October I accepted a role at Google. I wanted to write about why I made that decision, mostly for me to look back on and hold myself accountable to, but perhaps it will also help anyone else going through a similar decision. On the surface working at Google might seem like a no brainer. The company has been ranked first on Fortunes top 100 places to work eight of the past 12 years. The perks are legendary, the company has made some of the most used and impactful products in the world (Google search, Google Maps, Gmail, Chrome, Android, Youtube, etc.) and teams of Googlers are working on some of the coolest projects of the future (self driving cars, food delivery drones, cancer detection, etc.). Google known for fun offices and giving employees freedom to tackle big problems in innovative ways, of which there is a long history of