My first year at Google as a Customer Engineer
Exactly one year ago today I joined Google. From day one it was a roller-coaster ride. I remember sitting there the first day and trying to understand that I was part of Google. It felt unreal for quite a long time, and it still does at some moments. Google has been an amazing experience so far and there is still so much I want to do.
In this post I would like to share some highlights of my first year at Google. Of course there were also challenges in my first year too. Developer advocate Ian Lewis has also written down his experience in this article. I can totally relate to his story. For the part of the challenges I had, I’d like to refer to his article (see section “Challenges”)
People
The most striking and impressive parts of Google are the people that work here. Everyone who I’ve met at Google Amsterdam (where I’m based), is open, friendly, smart, funny and helpful. This also goes for other Googlers who I’ve met in other offices or at conferences. There is something unique in each and every person, which is hard to describe in one sentence. It’s intriguing that there are some many people working at Google from all places of the world.
Change is a constant
Google is without a doubt one of the most dynamic organizations I’ve ever seen. If something does not work, fix it (process, software, etc). This is common sense in most companies. But this is central to Google’s culture: If it works, what can we do to improve it? And when you want to improve, think 10x! Note that I’m referring to “we”. The support and feedback that you get when there is something that can be done better or in another way is overwhelmingly positive.
Google Cloud
Google Cloud is the challenger in the market: According to some reports Google is the #3 Cloud Provider right after the other two usual suspects. The tremendous drive to improve on this position is amazing. So many announcements, product releases, and sharing of vision and mission(“Democratize AI” for Chief Scientist Fei-Fei Li): It’s hard to keep up and yet so exciting. It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity to be part of this amazing journey to a new era of computing. Cloud Computing enables many more opportunities and possibilities for many organizations.
What’s Next (pun intended)
I’m looking at what’s coming up, how to meet the goals that we as Google Cloud have, and how to optimize my daily work: it excites me. Being a customer engineer is one of the roles where you get to use/touch/pitch new products directly with customers.
I’m feeling humble that I am part of this journey to help organizations build what’s next. If you want to see what’s next, you are cordially invited to our largest Google Cloud Conference “Next” in July 2018 in San Francisco.
P.s. If you think that this could also be you in a year from now, we are hiring :) Contact me and let me know how I could help you.
Image credits: Pixabay
