From "An update on David"

Seventh in a series of "An update on David" retrospectives, looking back on the last 11 years at Google: "WHYYYY???". [Cue memes] Last night was the NYC TI holiday party and I met nearly all the significant others of people on my team. Often my teammate would mention "Tomorrow is David's last day" and a few SOs replied with "Wow, why are you leaving Google???" Why indeed. For many years I always thought that people were crazy to leave Google. Even my wife, when I would tell her so-and-so was leaving, would ask "why???" So here's the big reveal: I never felt like I fit in here. This isn't impostor syndrome, as in, "they'll know I'm a fraud ". It's more like "WTF am I doing here? All my teammates/coworkers/other Googlers are smarter than me, learn faster, think deeper, anticipate problems and plan with more strategy than I do." Sometimes it's debilitating, and I've gone ...

Sixth in a series of "An update on David" retrospectives, looking back on the last 11 years at Google: "Things I'm proud of". I'm proud of getting this job, obvs. My career trajectory (not just at Google) has been quite...wobbly. I've been a consultant (working for a consulting company), Director of Software Development at a startup (eventually with a dozen software engineers and a couple hundred employees), a consultant, and back to software engineer. When I got the call from Google I figured it was a long shot, but when Google calls, you answer. Before I knew it I was on a plane to Mountain View and every few days after that the recruiting coordinator said I was progressing in the pipeline. I got the offer on a Friday. That weekend I went to Atlantic City with friends and at dinner announced the offer. "I'm not sure what do to." I think I said. I was worried - would I fit in? Would I be able to keep up? Do I have the world-sized vision...

Fifth in a series of "An update on David" retrospectives, looking back on the last 11 years at Google: "Regrets, I've had a few." (Don't worry; tomorrow's entry will be "Things I'm proud of") "Live life with no regrets". Sorry, brain don't work that way. I've had quite a few regrets during my life, and during my time at Google. Some are mundane and some are profound. I regret that I wasn't able to stay on the Docs team longer. It's a really awesome product and they've built and use awesome technologies. Kix ("Google Docs") was revolutionary at the time of its launch - "collaborative editing -- whaaa?" and I was proud to be part of the launch. I kinda fucked up the relationship and it was suggested I find another team. I regret what I did (and didn't do) and it turned out to be a bit of a turning point in my career (not for the better). Lesson learned: don't be a jerk, even if you don...

Fourth in a series of "An update on David" retrospectives, looking back on the last 11 years at Google: "On \"Guys\"" A lot of people use "guys" to mean "plural humans". This bothers the FUCK out of me, and I hear it all the time - at home (wife referring to our adult son and adult daughter); at work (co-workers referring to a mixed-gender set of other co-workers); on YouTube (don't get me started); etc. etc. etc. "But I consider guys to be gender neutral". Bullshit. You wouldn't call a female a "guy" - why would you call a group of people "guys" if they're not all guys? This makes no sense to me and is like chalk on a blackboard when I hear it. GUYS. IS. GENDER. SPECIFIC. Period. Stop calling a group of people "guys". Not everyone in the group is a "guy" and you're ( explicitly ) excluding them from the conversation. It's yet another small cut (as in, death by a th...