I worked at Google for eight years, and fell into a funk, because I picked up new challenges and moved teams, and learned a whole lot, but I also worked on backend infra projects, not shippable features, and you know how well that goes over with the perf review and promo committee.
So, I left for a startup. It was trial by fire, because Google does thing the Google way, and everyone else uses other technologies. Gone were borg, stubby, tap, and in came Kubernetes, REST, Jenkins. It took a long time to learn how the rest of the world works, and Google wasn't my first job, I started there after already working for fifteen years, but in eight years, the world changes a lot.
Now, I'm the main tech lead for a large startup on the verge of success. It's been a crap ton of work, grueling, I've probably made 30% of the income I would have if I stayed at Google in the years that I've been gone, but I've also worked with the best people I've ever encountered - better than at Google, and I feel professionally successful, albeit not financially.
I worked at Google for eight years, and fell into a funk, because I picked up new challenges and moved teams, and learned a whole lot, but I also worked on backend infra projects, not shippable features, and you know how well that goes over with the perf review and promo committee.
So, I left for a startup. It was trial by fire, because Google does thing the Google way, and everyone else uses other technologies. Gone were borg, stubby, tap, and in came Kubernetes, REST, Jenkins. It took a long time to learn how the rest of the world works, and Google wasn't my first job, I started there after already working for fifteen years, but in eight years, the world changes a lot.
Now, I'm the main tech lead for a large startup on the verge of success. It's been a crap ton of work, grueling, I've probably made 30% of the income I would have if I stayed at Google in the years that I've been gone, but I've also worked with the best people I've ever encountered - better than at Google, and I feel professionally successful, albeit not financially.