Journey from Naval Architecture to Google 😅

Leaving the Core Branch

Unlike many people here at Google, I come from a non software background (IIT KGP Naval Architecture graduate), but here I am working at my desk in Google Gurgaon office 😅

It was tough decision for me at the time given limited job opportunities in my area of study. I still remember my professor's exact words when I told him that I will be leaving the branch:

"I am really disappointed that all your hard-work of past few years will not be of much use to you going forward."

It was disheartening but honest feedback from one of the best person I know and we have kept in touch even now after 6 years of my graduation. Nevertheless I never imagined one day working in FAANG that too Google as a Strategic Cloud Engineer, Data. 

Stepping into Corporate world

Back in 2016, analytics was something really fancy and upcoming. There was a lot of craze and the area wasn't well established. One might argue that it's ever evolving but that's a topic for another day. 

I was lucky to get a job into dunnhumby (analytics MNC) straight out of campus and spent wonderful 3 years there. This transition from college to corporate for me was in one word "fun" 😎 - countless parties, company sponsored Europe trips, office gossip and forging life long friendships

Boredom which led to job switch

Something every corporate employee will tell you is they get bored of their role eventually. Some have other priorities like families, others want to focus on growth. I for one always wanted to try consulting to the point that I was contemplating doing MBA to get into the same. BUT, then came a job offer from a small consulting firm and I happily switched.  

Consulting, not my cup of tea 😐

I went into consulting hoping to learn a lot by working hard, but I didn't like constant client pleasing, endlessly working on powerpoint beautification and long work hours (16 -18 hours) 🤮.  Although it has its perk (A long trip to NY for example)

Having lived a peaceful life in analytics where you can make same money with 1/3rd effort, this seems unnecessary to me and hence I moved backed, this time as a data scientist.

Data Science - perceived awesome but insanely boring 😢

As a data scientist, when you know what you are doing, one realises that not every problem statement needs a deep neural net to be solved. In many cases, simple regression or tree based algorithms can work for many industries. I was aware of the fact and exploited it 😂

Being in a product company every model requires some time to be integrated, but I was part of research team. Don't get me wrong, I worked on very good problem statements and deployed industry first models but my actual work left me wanting for more. At one point I was barely working 3 hours a day (in COVID,  working from home)

This is when I decided to take up data engineering side of things as well, to be able to fully develop the model pipeline end to end. 

AND then came Google ✊👯

Based on my work, I was approached by a recruiter from Google via LinkedIn. I was surprised and extremely excited. Then began the tedious interview process which lasted 2 months and at the end I got the offer 😈. 

One simply cannot pass the opportunity to work at Google 😇

It has everything I wanted, smart colleagues, awesome culture, wholesome work, awesome food, an office I want to visit rather than working from home, countless swags (free goodies), etc, etc.