Today marks my second "last day" at Google, putting me just below 7 years of total tenure. The first one was one August 28, 2021. I was one week away from moving to Baltimore with my girlfriend (now wife) for her Ph.D. I said goodbye to most of my colleagues over Google Meet, although I had been able to get into the Pittsburgh office a few times during the socially distant return-to-office period. I remember being happy to leave. I was feeling very burnt out, sick of remote work, and excited for a change.

This departure feels different. I am saying goodbye (often in person) to great teammates, I'm enjoying the work, and I'm feeling refreshed by the energy and camaraderie in the Google Pittsburgh office every day. I'm making a career move that isn't motivated by burn out or dissatisfaction, which somehow makes it more bittersweet to say goodbye. The teammates that I am leaving represent, to me, some of the best parts of Google culture. I can't thank them enough, and I think I became a better engineer (definitely a better SRE) because of their influence.

Then why leave?

The short answer is that I got a better offer. Yes, more money, but also a chance to work with a very specific group of friends and former colleagues. Latitude AI has managed to collect a group of people that helped me grow the most in my career and, I think, brought out my best self. It was hard to weigh this against all of the positives of Vertex SRE, but in the end I didn't think I could give up this opportunity.

It is also worth admitting that Google has its flaws. I came back to Google on February 13, 2023 as the entire technology industry was changing course. In the time between signing my offer letter and my start date, Google cut over 20,000 jobs in its first mass layoff event in history. Luckily, my offer wasn't rescinded as part of the upheaval, but I was returning to a company culture that was reeling. There was an implicit promise from the executive level that this would all be temporary, and it was a necessary cost to unlock some future benefit. More than three years later, and it feels clear that the tumult is the new future. Something about the way Google made decisions broke with the layoffs and navigating the ambiguity could feel exhausting.

I think Google Pittsburgh has resisted some of this, but the Mountain View mothership looms large. There really is something special about this office and I am sad to leave it, but I have faith that the Googliness will stick around despite executive meddling.

Third time's the charm

Something that helped me make this decision was the knowledge that careers are long. I just crossed a decade as a working software engineer, and I hope to cross a few more before I hang up the keyboard. People are not the companies that they work for, and with enough time in a small enough town, paths will inevitably cross again. It has been a great second run at Google thanks to my friends and colleagues. See you on my next adventure!

The immediate effects of these layoffs were obvious; friends and trusted colleagues were suddenly gone. Projects were shuffled and canned. Org charts were redrawn, renamed, and unceremoniously emailed. There was an implicit promise from the executive level that this would all be temporary, and it was a necessary cost to unlock some future benefit. More than three years later, and it feels clear that the tumult is the new future. Something about the way Google made decisions broke with the layoffs. At every layer, agency and trust was replaced by ambiguity.

Putting energy into making Google better felt like a dangerous bet. Being on the wrong side of that meant burn out and career stall. Just navigating things like GRAD could feel exhausting or opaque. OKRs moved quickly, although that might just be Vertex