“Would you work there again?”
When I left Google to join Mozilla with Ben I would have answered that question in the affirmative, but I wouldn’t have thought that it would actually become a reality.
This week it has. I am very excited to have re-joined Google, and this time I get to do so with Ben.
Why?
The Google Developers space has changed a lot over the years that I have been gone, and the group is pretty darn impressive. The quality of content makes my original videos laughable, and the quality of engineering humbles me.
The general developer space has also continued to evolve. Gone is the era where you are solely focused on building a website. That changed when the mobile revolution changed the reach of our services to our pockets. At first we focused on simplified use cases with fantastic user experiences. We are past the simple “crank out a great lil mobile app that is a CRUD viewer and call an Angel” times. Now we are going deeper. We are expecting more intelligence out of our data models. We want to be able to give systems some data and have them understand and build connections for us. We want to communicate with them simply, maybe with a simple voice phrase, and have rich results instantly back with us.
These are exciting times and Google has a meaningful role to play in today’s rich ecosystem. I want to help developers create the next generation of experiences, ones that push the bar and truly help people.
Because, leverage
One of the side effects of going through my journey of health transformation was that it got me thinking a lot about life, and what I want to be doing with my own. I realized that I needed to deeply care about my next mission and the people it can affect. It wasn’t enough to love the team or the challenges, I was looking for more.
I spent quite some time thinking and working on areas across education, health, productivity, and the developer space. These were the topics that felt the most me. I could tell by the fact that I would wake up thinking about scenarios in those areas.
Within those spaces I also knew that I wanted to work on something that has leverage. It is great to work on something impactful, something that can touch many lives.
As I was working through all of this, Google called. They have new leadership and are attacking the developer space with vigor. The more people I met, the more excited I was to join forces once again. It is one thing to build a great app, but it is also very rewarding to help others build their own.
I am very curious to see how Google has changed, and to see how the world of technology will change in the future.
It has already been fun to see old friends, see my old calendar and Google Drive come alive, and to send surprise emails to folk from my “old” email. Wish me luck! Oh, and tell me what else we could be doing to help you!
p.s. Getting rid of the serifs also sealed the deal! 😉