The gratitude post: departing Twitter for new adventures
In July I departed Twitter after 5 years. I was a Technical Program Manager, International Operations Head, then Product Manager.
I want to reflect on 5 years and what that means.
I gained 5 unforgettable years of experience and 1,000 new @purekate followers. I began as employee 750 and depart as employee 200. It’s the people, it’s the work, it’s the highs and the lows that make a place great, a place home. With a few exceptions here and there, Twitter always felt like home.
As a Technical Program Manager, on Mobile, we were working hard and hiring furiously. I remember the countless times I interviewed people and talked to them about joining Twitter. I remember the swell of pride I felt as the words tumbled out. I would say the part about the company “Maturing, from teenagers, into adults”. How exciting it was to “Be part of the transition — to be in operational and management roles that really helped us to become adult”. The “Satisfaction I felt doing the work.” How it was “Never easy, and always full of the unexpected.”
When I helped build out the international growth team, my eyes were opened to what the rest of the world thought of Twitter and what Twitter thought of the rest of the world. I learned how Twitter fit in, and the vastly different landscapes we were competing in. I cared more and more for the users and what they needed.
When, in the end, I became a Product Manager, I was working in a product team vastly different from the iterations I had seen before. In my role I felt stability. I could focus on metrics and users and lean heavily on dependable data. Being inside Twitter in 2017 was not like being inside Twitter in 2012. Riding the storm after the IPO has made Twitter a more reliant and more cautious beast. It’s helped take the ego out of the game and employees are there for the right reasons. It’s different. I’m different.
In 5 years I was never bored. In 5 years I never stopped asking for what I could do next and what I could learn at Twitter. Interviewing elsewhere, I often got the impression that my 5 year tenure was not working for me, but potentially against me. I wonder how many people think “Crazy” or “Complacent” instead of “Loyal”. Just think about how much of a departure that is from what your relatives are doing in Ohio right now — how 5 years is just starting to settle into a job in most industries and locations.
If you’re pre-IPO your business and its employees may not have had to learn resilience. It may not have come under fire and may not have had to dig extremely deep to turn the boat around. Going through this is something I actually value rather than dismiss.
I have changed in 5 years:
#1 I changed how I feel about how-people-feel-about-me. I learned to lean in. I got braver. I learned to work around and beyond the doubts of “You aren’t technical enough”. I do what I do. I’ll show you any day that listening, consensus building, relationships, and planning work as well, if not better, than some other approaches.
#2 I changed roles. I actively sought out ways to grow and learn inside the company. This I did for personal reward, for career development, for fun, and for sanity. I changed from caring about my local project, to caring about how the business was run, how growth was achieved and what we stood for.
#3 I became a working mom. Twitter gave me great benefits in support of this choice. I took the 20 weeks off to have and bond with my daughter. When I came back, I was in awe at how easy it was to pump at work: Twitter provided amazing mother’s rooms with locks on the door, sinks, fridges, microwaves. Returning to work could have been a lot harder than it was, but I genuinely felt spoiled that I had a supportive environment and facilities to make the return as pain-free as possible.
For what Twitter has given me I feel like I have given back. Certainly, in all that time and through all those changes, I have had some tough times at Twitter, but I hold no grudges.

I deeply feel that I, we all, have good reason to feel optimistic about Twitter. I trust the current leadership. I see that the ship is moving in the right direction. I am excited to see what ships next.
