Week 1: A Marathon & A Sprint — 18 Months in the Belly of the Tech Beast
Fun fact, I originally came to the Bay for an internship with the Sandberg Goldberg Family Foundation. The pay was laughable (in relation to the cost of living, though I’m sure the work would have been impactful) and I spent my time packing for my move from my parents house in LA convincing myself that my superior cooking skills could make a diet consisting of ramen and oatmeal work. The day after I signed my internship offer letter, a Marketing Manager from Google called about a contractor position on her team. The pay and perks were just enough to clear the ramen/oatmeal hurdle and would put me firmly in “the room where it happens.” So, in September 2018, I started as a Product Marketing Manager (PMM) contractor at Google.
Within my first three months at Google I had informational coffee chats with over 60 Googlers. Within my first 9 months I had interviewed for six full-time roles at Google, to no avail. By the end of 2019, I had worked at Google as a contractor for over a year driving partnership opportunities for the Google Assistant Marketing team. Despite my scope expanding twice in 2019, my request for a raise was twice denied; even after launching a successful first of its kind nationwide radio campaign that drove 25% lift in monthly active users in Q4 2019.
For complete transparency, in 2019 I made $115K gross (including overtime) living in the Bay, with an MBA from a top 10 MBA program and Bachelor’s degree from a top 25 institution. This also includes six years of relevant work experience (pre-MBA). For context, $115k is at minimum $10-$20k less in base pay than PMMs hired as part of the Associate PMM program. New hires that heavily over-index in recent college grads with less than three years of work experience. By Q4 of 2019, Google’s internal extended workforce team flagged my formal raise requests for investigation.
If that seems like a lot, it was. A slow creep of stress and chronically elevated cortisol levels manifesting itself in carpal tunnel, intensely painful and heavy menstrual periods, adult onset eczema…
Only later did it occur to me that everyday spent trekking to and from the office was trauma inducing. I probably cried before work at least 3–4x a week, cleaned my face, and then hoisted myself up to do it all again. What got me through my last 6 months at Google was focusing on what I felt would be my last big launch before my work would inevitably succumb to the immense dissatisfaction and lack of psychological safety I felt at work. CES 2020 would be my last hurrah where I, along with a wonderful team of collaborators drove a 50% YOY increase in partnership activations despite a 40% decrease in marketing budget.
Special shout out to Adu and Michael for being such a wonderful bright spot for me in my last months at Google.
After an understandably exhausting three month sprint to the CES finish line, I was surprisingly energized to complete my own 30-day sprint to secure a full-time employee role in tech. I had already interviewed for full-time roles at Google so I set my eyes on external opportunities. Within the first 30 days of 2020 I completed full-loop interviews with Facebook; and within 60 days had a full-time offer where I negotiated to more than triple my pre-MBA base salary. 💼
Less than a week later, the US went into complete lockdown due to the Coronavirus Pandemic.😷
A week after the shutdown I gleefully shared with my Google manager that I was leaving and spent my final 2 weeks at Google using back channels and friends of friends to push Google’s internal extended workforce team to complete their, at that point, six-month investigation into my lack of a raise in 18 months of top performance an ever increasing scope. The investigation found that I was due an additional $42k from underpaid work from July of 2019 until I terminated my contract in late March 2020. 💰
Yes. You read that number right. $42k that could have gone to improving my living conditions (at the time I lived in a house with 6 other roommates); reducing my debt load from pursuing a graduate degree; or paying for better medical care (I distinctly remember my mother walking me through removing my own stitches after a nasty cut to avoid another $2k hospital bill).
I wish I could say my experience was merely because I was a contractor but I know for a fact that other (full-time employees at that) who fit my profile were also paid out in back pay after leaving Google in the tens of thousands of dollars. 💰💰💰
But as the world descended further into lockdown, mask mandates, and unprecedented deaths, I had successfully:
👜 Secured the bag and full-time employment at an industry leading tech company ahead of layoffs and general uncertainty.
💰 Negotiated a compensation package that was the largest amount I had ever been paid to do…ANYTHING.
🌐 Pivoted into the brand new (to me) world of advertising technology.
👋 Left a toxic work environment.
🚫🏠 Moved into my first apartment without a roommate
There were of course many business leaders, friends, and family that helped along the way but I only have your attention for so long so I’ll focus on the one area of relationships that was pivotal to successfully landing all of the above…my church community at vive church. Vive church, our weekly Midweek dinners, and serving on team became my safe space to complain, pray, believe, cultivate hope, and heal. A ton has changed in my five years in the Bay but the one constant has been vive church. ⛪️
So, needless to say, I kicked off 2020 with a bang.
WHEW!
Right?
Should be smooth sailing from here on out…
Right?
Famous. Last. Words.
Come back next week for part II of the series I’m entitling…it’ll come to me…
Until then, here a few questions for you to ponder on. Feel free to reach out here or, better yet, continue the conversation on LinkedIn!
- Have you ever faced a challenging work situation that pushed you to your limits?
- In the face of adversity, what’s your secret to staying motivated and focused on your goals?
- What’s your most memorable career “sprint” moment?
