Leaving Google

I’m not entirely sure why I’m writing this piece. Maybe it’s because after spending almost nine years with a company, perceived by many as the ideal employer, one has to qualify their decision to leave. Maybe it is because I need to process my last nine years. Or maybe, it is in part what my wife said, “Besides our marriage, it’s the longest relationship you’ve been in.” Thinking about work as a “relationship” sounds awkward, but in a strange way it is.

Nine years ago when I started at Google, I vividly remember sometime during my third week coming home and saying, “This is where I belong, this is my home.” There was a certain level of honesty, integrity, commitment to excellence, and a very human element that really resonated with me. I knew nothing about the job I had signed up for, an SRE Manager, and I didn’t really care. There was a certain magic in the air with everything that I saw and interacted with. The question wasn’t “How little can we do” but “How big can we think?”. I joined in November 2014, right smack in the middle of 2015 planning, I knew nothing of what we were working on, I didn’t understand the roadmap, I couldn’t keep track of the difference between colossus, rpcz, sisyphus, blaze, or an estub. It didn’t matter. I had been thrown in the deep end, with no life raft in sight, and I absolutely loved it!