After you're laid off, what comes next? For many tech workers, there's no easy answer. Following historic mass layoffs in 2023 and 2024, tech hiring has slowed and the job market looks increasingly bleak. Laid-off employees face an uncertain future.

For a road map on how to move on post-layoff, we spoke to former employees at Google, which cut 6% of its workforce nearly two years ago and has continued making cuts in 2024. Eight ex-Googlers impacted by those layoffs — including one who has since returned to the company — shared what it was like to lose what some considered their "dream job," how they found their footing in the aftermath, and their advice for others facing similar circumstances.

Many of the employees Business Insider spoke with said they were caught off guard by their layoff or that they expected only low performers to be impacted. Google said it provided impacted employees with outplacement support and invited them to apply for open roles across the company. Some interviewees told BI they found few openings.

Since their layoffs, these former Googlers' paths have varied. One ran for city council; another took a job at Trader Joe's. Some landed jobs at other Big Tech companies, and others launched their own ventures. While many reflected fondly on their time at Google and felt their layoff was a blessing in disguise, others expressed frustration toward Google's leadership.

Here are their stories, in their own words. Their quotes have been edited for length and clarity.

Jonea Gordon, 36, Philadelphia

Gordon is a lawyer by trade who worked at Meta prior to joining Google as a privacy program manager eight months before the 2023 layoffs.

I was at a coffee shop with my husband when a news alert popped up on his phone saying that Google was laying off 12,000 people that day. We'd both survived layoffs before — my husband works at Amazon and I'd been at Facebook prior to Google — so layoff news generally didn't startle us; we were used to it. I'm sure it's not me, I thought. But then I tried to log into my computer, and my password was rejected.

I very quickly recognized the silver lining of the opportunity. I had six months' severance. I'd never taken a break before — I'd been working like crazy since graduating from law school in 2012. I rested and spent more time with my kids. We took a family vacation. I started doing Pilates and got back into therapy. I used the time as a true sabbatical to reenergize myself for the next phase of my career.

After three months, I started applying for jobs. I turned down an offer from a consulting firm because that world didn't feel like the right fit for me. Some big law firms approached me, and I took a contract role at a firm while continuing my job search. I started a new role in data privacy at Cruise, a self-driving car company, the same week my Google severance ended, but a few months later I was laid off again.

I dove right back into the job search and have been at Amazon since December. So far, everything is good. People are very nice and welcoming here, and I love my team. I'm eight months pregnant and plan to take maternity leave, but I'll be back to work after that. I also launched a coaching business recently and will be producing a new podcast next year.

I have peace around how everything ended up. My advice to people is that if you are going into tech right now, you can't be someone who takes yourself extremely seriously. I have a huge sense of humor, and that gets me through a lot of things. Because my husband and I both work in tech, people assume that we must live large, but we don't. We share a Toyota and live with the knowledge that we are very fortunate to be in jobs we love, but it could all be gone tomorrow.

Lois (Kyongsook) Kim, 55, Seoul

Kim led Google's communications team in Korea for 12 years before moving to its Mountain View headquarters in 2019 to establish its international media team. She was the director of global communications prior to her 2023 layoff.

As a longtime Googler who'd been with the company through the financial crisis of 2007 and 2008, I felt like I was safe. At first, I thought the layoff email I received was a scam. As reality began to set in, I got really angry; I'd been so loyal to Google. I loved working there and felt so proud to be there. I went through the five stages of grief and wondered, Why me? I got depressed. I'd look at my empty calendar and feel rejected, like nobody wanted me.

I began to see how I could use my severance package as an opportunity. I decided to do a "gap year" and wrote out a list of things I'd always wanted to do: work at Trader Joe's, be a barista, work at In-N-Out Burger, drive for Lyft or Uber, pet sit, work as a bartender. It made me feel really rejuvenated.

That first weekend, I applied to Trader Joe's. But on my first day, I had trouble walking in the door. I'd been the director at a big company, was a two-time published author, and had been featured on a top Korean talk show; I thought people would look down on me because of the Asian cultural concept of "saving face." It was an internal barrier I had to break through, and I did. By May, I was working three jobs at the same time for up to 70 hours a week — Trader Joe's, Starbucks, and Lyft whenever I had time — plus pet-sitting on an ad hoc basis.

I decided to write a book about my experience to motivate other people in the same situation as me. Being laid off is painful — even more so in Korean culture because people don't talk about it. I wanted to be an example and say, "It's not your fault, and you can make full use of your time and then move on."

After 18 months, I ended up moving back to Korea to be the chief brand officer at Hanmi Group, a pharmaceutical company. Things have changed a lot in the five years I was away, but I'm using my experience from 30 years in international companies and learning a lot from local companies. I've also found my customer support and marketing experience at Trader Joe's and Starbucks to be helpful. I hope to retire in the US. Trader Joe's has a really good internal transfer system, so I'd love to work for two years in San Francisco, then in Idaho, then in Florida, and so on, so that I can explore the States while making money.

I miss a lot about Google, but more about the early days when it felt like a family. The company grew and grew, and we had to lose some parts and focus on efficiency.

I did a good job of quickly processing and moving on after my layoff. In hindsight, I wonder why I didn't take a break to travel, but I know I would've been too worried to enjoy it. If I were to share advice with friends going through the same thing, I'd tell them not to feel too anxious, especially about things they can't control. Maybe the future is already ready, even though you don't know it.

Anonymous Google employee

A senior software engineer who was laid off in January 2024 secured another job at Google a few weeks later. They asked to be kept anonymous to protect their job security.

I was really happy at Google. For the most part, I think it strikes the right balance between productivity and work-life balance. I had to take medical leave for depression at another fast-paced Big Tech job I'd worked; at another job, things felt like they moved at a glacial pace. At Google, I didn't feel overwhelmed, yet also felt like I was delivering. It was definitely my favorite place I've worked.

Because of my history of depression, I was afraid that I'd go to suicidality if I was laid off, so I worked with my counselor to set up a well-defined game plan. When the layoff actually happened, it felt horrible — my worst fear coming true. If I were early in my career or if my child and wife didn't depend on me as the breadwinner, I probably would've thought, Nice! Good vacation and generous severance. But I was super anxious about what might happen if I didn't find a comparable job in the next four or five months before our cost of living exceeded the severance.

I had my résumé already prepped and a contact list of people to reach out to immediately, and I went into cortisol-fueled search mode. I reached out to a lot of connections for referrals and applied everywhere, both internally and externally. I checked the Google internal job posting site every day, but there weren't many open positions. I also applied to every relevant LinkedIn EasyApply position. I spent the rest of my time practicing LeetCode problems and reviewing past projects.

A few weeks later I got a response from one of my Google applications and set up a video call. A couple of days later, the manager told me they wanted to bring me on. My biggest priority was securing a job so I accepted, despite having advanced in the interview process at some other companies. The Google role also had some advantages, like maintaining my competitive compensation and giving me an opportunity to develop relevant skills and future-proof my qualifications.

Returning to Google, I feel more anxious and find it harder to focus. Before the layoffs, I had a sense of security, like I was in a really good industry that paid well and had lots of mobility. Now, I have this ever-present fear that the industry will shrink and become too competitive, or companies will choose to take efficiency gains from AI to cut costs. And I've lost trust in Google's leadership. The real responsibility for layoffs lies with upper middle management up to leadership, and I feel there's been essentially no accountability.

Still, I think coming back to Google was the best risk-averse decision. My plan worked well, and I think I went about things the best I could.

Sylvia Duran, 40, San Diego

Duran worked at Google for almost nine years in various roles, including as the first chief of staff to the VP of operations. She also headed YouTube Mexico during the pandemic. Prior to the 2023 layoff, she was the head of strategy and operations for YouTube's Latin American and Canadian markets.

The night before the layoff, I missed dinner with my family to take a strategy call with the creator marketing team based in Singapore. The next morning, I tried to check my work calendar before breakfast and it wouldn't load. People had been nervous about layoffs but thought low performers would be the only ones impacted. That's not what happened.

Once I realized my role had been eliminated, I started bawling. I'd given everything to the company, like so many of us, and it wasn't a possibility in my head that I would be laid off.

I gave myself the weekend to grieve. One of my best friends visited from Seattle to support me. Three days later, I started a podcast, an idea I'd been playing with for a while. I put my head down and worked on it as if it was a full-time job; I loved it. It was therapeutic. I talked a lot with guests about childhood circumstances and how they influence our careers and decision-making. I came from a working-class background, and after getting an Ivy League education, I saw how easy it was to get sucked into thinking, I can't take this other kind of job because what is it going to say about me? I was fortunate that I had enough severance that it took me pretty much through the end of the year.

I became more active on LinkedIn and told people I was looking for a job; before, I'd been a very private person who didn't like asking for help. A friend of a friend, despite not really knowing me, helped pass my résumé on to different leaders at Intuit. I had an informational call with one, and when an opportunity arose within his team, I was able to land the job. I've been really happy here — my manager is really supportive, and we're working on tough, interesting problems.

After working at Google for so long and seeing how it ended, I've been thinking about how I spend my time. Even though I love my job now, I haven't let it interfere with my other priorities, like carving out dedicated time for my two kids. I'm also still regularly publishing podcast episodes, and I recently joined a nonprofit board.

There were a couple of times when I considered leaving Google but didn't because of fear. My advice for people is to not make career decisions from a place of fear. Stay somewhere because you're passionate, not because you're afraid to try something else.

I don't regret that night before I was laid off when I missed dinner with my family to work; I was excited about the project and was trying to be mindful of people in other time zones. But now I know that my layoff decision had already been made at that point, and the company was comfortable having me work really late the night before they were going to lay me off. My advice to people is to make sure that when you're making these trade-offs, you're doing it with clear eyes.

Aaron Gabriel Neyer, 32, Boulder, Colorado

Neyer interned at Google during college and returned seven years later as a developer relations engineer, before being laid off in January 2023.

When I found out I was laid off, I felt almost a relief and a sense of openness. I suddenly had this blessing of a healthy severance to use to build what I wanted outside of Google.

I intermittently job-searched for a few months and almost joined an early-stage startup, but nothing quite landed. I also traveled a bit around the US, did a lot of reading and writing, and participated in a lot of community engagement. I have a thriving community here in Boulder and enjoy being in nature. I also became the executive director of a nonprofit I joined in 2022 called Consciousness Hacking Colorado — now relaunched as Woven Web — focused on facilitating harmony between technology, society, consciousness, and nature.

I've begun a second master's degree, this time in creative technology and design at the University of Colorado Boulder's Atlas Institute. I also ran for Boulder City Council. I didn't win, but the city council appointed me to the Human Relations Commission which has been great. We're working on issues of how to address tensions in our community, especially in relation to the Middle East conflict, and how we can bring about better dialogue to address these tensions.

I bike past the Google office a lot here in Boulder and often feel a tenderness in my heart. For all of the company's faults, there are many things that it does well, like the beautiful community of people who work there.

I don't have too many regrets in life. There are so many pathways, but the one that I'm on feels really beautiful. I'll go back into some form of full-time work at some point, but I'm not rushing to any decisions. For now, I feel stable enough to keep prioritizing learning and creating community, putting a lot of the gifts I received at Google to good use.

Eric Wages, 46, Massachusetts

Eric Wages worked at Google for 15 years in various roles and spent over a decade leading its third-largest data center campus. Before his 2023 layoff, he was the global program manager of the corporate real estate team.

I wasn't surprised by the layoff. I could see the tide turning a year in advance; people weren't working in the office, and yet we had many billions of dollars of office construction ongoing. I spent a lot of effort trying to convince leadership to pause construction, but my attempts weren't well-received.

I'd been laid off before and knew that layoffs aren't personal. Still, I went through the traditional stages of grief. I'm someone who has to live with a purpose, and my purpose evaporated when I received an impersonal layoff email that Friday morning.

I bought a whiteboard, put it behind my desk, and started trying to figure out what my purpose was now: What am I good at? Do I want to ever work for a large company again? I knew I never wanted to work with jerks again — I'm not saying I worked for many of them at Google, but there are many folks who are just a pain. I wanted the flexibility to work with people I enjoyed working with and help them solve problems — that's what I had always enjoyed as a leader.

Three months later, I started my own firm, Idealum Solutions. It's a mix of technical consulting, coaching, and understanding how people work, focused on data centers.

I'm thankful for the layoff, because I'd been in the golden handcuffs. I think I'd be miserable if I were still there today. And as much as I bemoan the golden handcuffs, they've served me well. My 15 years at Google set me up with a wonderful financial backstop, which has allowed me to be picky about how I work and what I charge.

Being an independent consultant and business owner is rewarding. When I couldn't find a contractor this summer to fix some things around the house, I was able to not actively seek new clients for a couple of months and just do it myself. It also allowes me to have a better relationship with my wife.

While I think Google could have done better with the layoff, there's no good way to lay off 12,000 people. Any manager who's had to terminate someone knows to expect the absolute worst. Multiply that by 12,000 — locking the doors and turning off the badge was, dare I say it, the best way.

But one way they could've done better was to ask for volunteers; I would've strongly considered leaving if an offer had been tendered. It was extremely frustrating to see the culture changing after being there for so long.

Shao Chun Chen, 38, Singapore

Chen joined Google in 2016 as an account manager for the company's Singapore advertisers and did a three-month rotation with Google's strategy and operations team in Silicon Valley in 2019. Prior to the 2024 layoffs, he was the head of small business ad sales for the Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Pakistan markets.

My last day at Google — my dream job — was on Valentine's Day this year, the day before my 38th birthday. Logically, I knew that industry ups and downs and turnover were pretty normal. Emotionally, though, it was tough. I had been there eight years; that's like an eight-year relationship. My initial reaction was pain and anger, driven by ego. I also compared myself to those who weren't laid off, feeling like I was better or more experienced or more loyal than they were.

I had a lot of sleepless nights and went through the grieving process. My wife was extremely supportive. The toughest part was knowing that the next day, the company just moved on. That was sort of a rude awakening.

I was given two months to look for other roles internally. I panicked and applied for every job available, hanging on for dear life to the possibility of still being able to call myself a Googler — a huge part of my identity. A couple of senior Google leaders graciously reached out about joining their teams, but I knew I wouldn't enjoy the roles and didn't want to do a bad job. When I turned them down, every part of my body was shaking.

I splurged on a solo snowboarding trip to Japan and spent time alone in the mountains. I'd wake up at night crying. There had been so much going on that once I gave my body and mind a bit of peace and space, it automatically went into recovery mode, which was very therapeutic.

I posted my first YouTube video in April. I wanted to share my layoff story to bring comfort and courage to others. Many people reached out to me saying things like, "I felt the same way," and "Even my therapist couldn't articulate how I'm feeling as well as you did." It feels like my calling is to help people have a healthier relationship with their careers and money, and my YouTube channel has grown since then. I've also launched a coaching and consulting business and teach at the National University of Singapore.

While I don't earn as much as I did working full-time, I make more per hour and have much more flexibility. I also achieved financial freedom several years ago, by growing my income from $80,000 to close to $300,000 at Google, saving and investing at least half of my paycheck, and being very conscious of my spending.

I wish I'd been more supportive of people that I used to work with who were laid off before me. While Google was and still is a huge part of my identity, I learned that there are really other parts of my life that I should nurture. Looking back, I'm grateful — I wouldn't have discovered this life was possible if not for the layoff.

Camila Ferraz, 34, San Francisco/Miami/Zurich

Ferraz started in sales at Google in São Paolo, Brazil, in 2011 after college, briefly left for another opportunity, and returned as an analytical lead in Google's San Francisco office. Prior to the 2023 layoffs, she was a senior product manager in Google's internal incubator, Area 120.

When I woke up that morning and saw the layoff email, I was so out of touch with reality that my first concern was that my team wouldn't be able to access a document I'd been up late working on the night before. It took a bit of time for me to realize, "Wait, I lost my job."

I jumped straight into practical things. A friend and former coworker who'd read about the layoffs told me she was hiring, so I jumped out of bed and did an interview, but I could hardly pay attention. I went back to Brazil for a week to be close to my childhood friends. For those of us in tech, it felt like the world was falling apart, but I'm from an island in the south of Brazil, and being there helped me keep that in perspective.

I ended up moving to Miami, where a lot of my friends had moved during the pandemic. Climate tech is one of my personal passions, and I took a remote consulting job with a nonprofit biodiversity lab based in Zurich for a few months.

On one of my trips to Zurich, I met my now-cofounder. Looking for a cofounder in the months prior was almost like dating — finding the right one was the most challenging part, and now that I have, it feels so right. Together, we incorporated biodiversityX, an AI-powered tech company providing real-time forest analytics, in Zurich.

Losing a job is traumatic, but it's humbling to think about how much Google transformed my life. It was such a good place to grow and develop as a leader, and I miss the culture, the food, and the people.

Before, I thought a career had to be very linear — one promotion after another; tomorrow needs to be bigger than yesterday. Today, I see things as a bit more fluid and view the layoff as a blessing in disguise. Being an entrepreneur — the degree of responsibility and the speed at which we can move — is so freeing and rewarding. The pieces are coming together, and I'm grateful to Google for being such a great school.

• Aaron Neyer joined Google in 2021 as an engineer after several years of self-discovery and nomadic living.
• In January 2023, he was one of over 12,000 employees laid off. He felt a sense of relief and openness.
• Neyer now leads a nonprofit, is involved with local government, and is pursuing a second master's degree.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Aaron Neyer, executive director of the nonprofit Woven Web and a former developer relations engineer at Google based in Boulder, Colorado. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

I studied computer science in college and interned at Google after my junior year. I received a full-time return offer, but I wanted to travel and felt like going the startup route would give me a lot more flexibility.

My dad passed away around the time I graduated. I moved to San Francisco for a job, but a couple of months later, I realized I didn't want to confine myself full-time and quit.

I spent the next four years being basically nomadic — doing the free-spirited hippie thing. During that time, I lived off savings from my time working in tech, life insurance that I received when my dad passed, and a few wise crypto investments that I made.

I attended a lot of different gatherings such as music festivals, dance retreats, and meditation retreats, connecting with all kinds of people. It was a period of self-discovery as well as a time of finding healing around the grief from losing both of my parents, as my mom had died when I was younger.

I wanted to participate in the world more effectively

After a while, I decided I wanted to go back to participating in the world in a way that I felt to be more effective. I got a master's degree from Naropa University in ecopsychology to ground my philosophy around how change can happen and how we can create more connection in the world.

I missed the intellectual rigor, creativity, and financial stability of the tech world, so I applied to rejoin Google and started working there in May 2021 as a developer relations engineer. My work was 60% about coding and 40% about community relationships.

At Google, we were all able to use our "20% time" to work on something outside our main roles, and I spent mine doing work having to do with connecting people and climate. I was part of a grassroots climate community within Google called Anthropocene working on how we could focus more on climate solutions inside Google. I also worked on a little project called Project Nature, trying to bring ecopsychology ideas into Google's processes and products, as well as Flourish, a project in Google's startup incubator Area 120 aimed at helping people stay connected to one another.

After Flourish was cut from Area 120, I tried to find a way to get a head count and work on it full-time as an internal project, but it became clear to me that the tightening budget and constructs of Google weren't going to support that.

Just two weeks later, in January 2023, I was laid off. I felt almost a relief and a sense of openness. I suddenly had this blessing of a healthy severance to use to build what I wanted outside of Google.

I've been working on building community and strengthening connection

From March through May, I intermittently job-searched and almost joined an early-stage startup, but nothing quite landed. I wanted to do something meaningful and satisfying. I also traveled a bit around the US, did a lot of reading and writing, and participated in a lot of community engagement. I have a thriving community here in Boulder and enjoy being in nature, learning, and growing.

I became the executive director of a nonprofit I joined in 2022 called Consciousness Hacking Colorado and led its relaunch as Woven Web. We're an organization about facilitating harmony between technology, society, consciousness, and nature, and we place a lot of emphasis on helping people communicate and collaborate more effectively.

I also started exploring political engagement and ran for Boulder City Council. While I didn't win my race, the city council appointed me to the Human Relations Commission. It's been going great. I've been starting some conversations about how we address tensions in our community, especially in relation to the Middle East conflict, and we're beginning to make proposals about how we can bring about better dialogue in our city.

I'm also pursuing a second master's degree, this time in creative technology and design at the University of Colorado Boulder's Atlas Institute. It's been really fun growing my tech skills again in a creative way, with coding and generative art.

In October, Woven Web coordinated a 10-day event to connect people across different communities and ultimately create more coherence in Boulder. This also served as a launching point for us to raise some serious philanthropy and grant funding so that I can pay myself to be full-time executive director.

The path I'm on is beautiful

I don't have too many regrets in life. There are so many pathways, but the one that I'm on feels really beautiful. I feel I've lived a pretty full life since being laid off. I've been really excited to have plenty of space away from a core working environment, and now I'm really happy to be back to having a lot of structure in terms of Woven Web and school.

I'll go back into some form of full-time work at some point, but I'm not rushing to any decisions. For now, I feel stable enough to keep prioritizing learning and creating community, putting a lot of the gifts I received at Google to good use.

I bike past the Google office a lot here in Boulder and often feel a tenderness in my heart. I've even had tears well up before. For all of the company's faults, there are many things that it does well, like the beautiful community of people who work there. I have so much love for many of the people.

If you took an unconventional career path before or after Big Tech and would like to share your story, email Jane Zhang at [email protected].

• Pushkar Singh is an L6 engineer at Google. He's been in the ads AI space since 2017.
• Some engineers in the team he manages have Ph.D.s, though Singh doesn't have one himself.
• One way he stays competitive in his field is by volunteering to review research papers.

This as-told-to essay is based on a transcribed conversation with Pushkar Singh, a 31-year-old Google engineering lead in California, about breaking into and staying competitive in the AI field. Singh's employment and salary have been verified with documentation. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

Google is a very big company that solves all kinds of problems. I've found my niche here.

I joined in 2015 as an L3 engineer straight out of college. I started in Google Docs but moved to the ads AI space in 2017. I liked the high impact and high stakes in ads; if you make a mistake, you can cost companies and advertisers millions of dollars.

I worked my way up the ranks to become an L6, known as a staff software engineer, with a base salary of $252,000. With my bonus and stock grants, I'll receive over $519,000 in total compensation by the end of 2024. I'm an engineering lead on a team powering two of Google's big ad products. Part of my job is working on AI models that power core features behind these products.

I lead a team of 13 other engineers, many of whom have doctorates, even though I don't have one myself. In my experience, it's more common to have a master's or Ph.D. than just a bachelor's in the AI and machine learning field.

Here's how I got an AI job at Google without a Ph.D. and how I stay up-to-date in this rapidly developing industry.

I thought about getting a Ph.D. but was offered a job at Google before I got the chance to

I grew up in India, and for my bachelor's, I studied computer science at the Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad. I'd always been interested in computers, so it felt natural to me to pursue this for my career.

Two years into my degree, I asked more senior peers at my university how I could make the most of my summer break. They suggested I find a research internship.

I cold-emailed 30 to 40 professors I wanted to work with, and finally, one academic at a university in Japan let me work on their research project. This got me into the AI and machine learning world and the research mindset. The following summer, I did a different internship, also in machine learning. I wanted to go into machine learning because it was a rapidly developing field being used to solve hard problems like spam reduction.

With my research experience and high college grades, a Ph.D. felt like a natural future step for me. However, I became interested in competitive coding as a hobby during my degree too, and I became quite good at it.

I participated in a coding competition organized by Google. The company noticed me and asked me to interview with them. It led to a job offer. My interviewer even offered me a job on his team because he really liked me.

Instead of going on to do a Ph.D. after graduating in 2015, I started working for Google in Bengaluru that year.

Now, I manage a team of other engineers, some of whom have Ph.D.s

My first Google manager, who interviewed me, briefly mentioned he liked my research internships and strong competitive coding background. He put me on a team working on an AI model for auto-capitalization in Google Docs. I also worked on improving the spellcheck.

In 2017, after being promoted to an L4 engineer, I requested a move to the US with the company. Silicon Valley and computer science are synonymous, so working there was a dream for me.

Since the move, I've been working on developing keyword-less ad technology. I built the first models for keyword-less targeting in PMax, and for my work, I received a Google Ads Tech Impact award. I also launched the final URL expansion and received another company award.

Since moving to America, I've received two promotions and am now an engineering lead for a team of 13. I'm responsible for choosing which projects my team works on to have a positive impact and help them progress in their careers.

Several people on my team have a master's, and multiple also have Ph.D.s. You can be a Google engineer without a master's or Ph.D., but from what I've seen, most people in the AI and machine learning field have these qualifications, showing how competitive the field is.

My first manager at Google gave me AI work without these qualifications, and while I don't know exactly why, I think having top grades in my bachelor's and two research internships helped.

You can thrive and get promoted in AI without these qualifications because the field is changing rapidly. Your degree can give you a headstart, but to stay relevant, you need to regularly upskill. Without that, even a Ph.D. recipient can become irrelevant.

I make active efforts to stay competitive in my field

A couple of methods have particularly helped me stay up-to-date in my industry.

The first is being part of a research paper reading group. Every two weeks, my team and I, and some other folks outside the team, meet. One person is tasked with reading a research paper in two weeks. At the meeting, they'll present the paper and talk about its new findings. The group critiques the paper and brainstorms whether we can use the research in our work.

I've found this is an efficient way to keep the team up-to-date. There are so many research papers out there, but this is a collective effort.

The second thing is volunteering to review research papers. When new papers are developed, research conferences need people to volunteer their expertise and assess how novel they are. This means I can read papers before they're published and also give back to the research community.

I've been doing these two things for years. They've helped me develop my expertise, and I think they've played a part in helping me get promoted at Google because people recognize I'm very dedicated.

Job opportunities in AI are exploding. If you're someone who's excited about new things and problem-solving, then I think it's a good field to be in.

Do you have a career story you want to share? Email [email protected]

• Mike Manalac has worked in the tech hubs of San Francisco, Silicon Valley, and Chicago since 2016.
• He says each place has its strengths, but Chicago is the best place for raising a family.
• Chicago offers Manalac and his family the perfect balance career, affordability, and family life.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Mike Manalac, a 39-year-old accounting manager at Google. It's been edited for length and clarity.

Over the past eight years, I've worked in the tech scenes of San Francisco, Silicon Valley, and Chicago. The three places couldn't be more different in terms of lifestyle, and they've each appealed to me for different reasons.

Here's how the three places compare:

San Francisco is fun but not for the faint of heart

I moved to San Francisco in 2016 to pursue world-class career opportunities and adventure. I'd spent the past eight years as an audit manager in Baltimore and the cross-country move was a big change for me.

As someone with ambitious career goals, San Francisco was the mecca of opportunity, so I joined PwC to get closer to Bay Area tech jobs. Some of the world's most innovative companies were basically next door, and their corporate headquarters lined the city's blocks like Lego bricks.

I once interviewed at Salesforce's headquarters while on my lunch break since it was only a few blocks away from PwC. When doing phone screens for Uber, Twitter, and Dolby, I knew I'd be able to walk over to their offices for an on-site interview at a moment's notice.

As a young professional with limited life responsibilities, San Francisco turned out to be the perfect place to live fast and loose. The social scene was amazing — a night out for drinks could mean stopping by a speakeasy with no sign, sipping a mai tai on a floating tiki bar, or drinks served from a bathtub at a bar the size of a walk-in closet.

San Francisco also has the best park scene in the country; I've yet to find a better party than a regular Saturday afternoon at Dolores Park.

It's also a walkable city. For the first time in my adult life, I was car-free. The city was full of trendy coffee shops, unique bars and restaurants, and charming neighborhoods to explore.

But living in San Francisco also isn't for the faint of heart. Outside of coworkers, my then-fiancée (and now wife) and I found it incredibly challenging to make friends; everyone seemed to assign others a level of importance based on where they lived and worked. I also would've needed an absurd amount of wealth to purchase a home and raise a family there.

I felt that the city's biggest blemish, though, was the seedy Tenderloin district, which sits smack dab in the middle of downtown. I had to walk through the neighborhood to catch a corporate shuttle bus to work, and I saw my fair share of sketchy characters and shady dealings at the time.

Silicon Valley's career opportunities were unmatched

Later that year, I started working in Silicon Valley after I joined Walmart's eCommerce division in San Bruno. And the following year, I landed a job as an accounting manager at Google's Sunnyvale campus.

Silicon Valley offers the coolest places to work and its career opportunities are unmatched. I was amazed by the sprawling corporate campuses. Walking through Facebook's invite-only campus, which is like a walled garden city, and down its main street, Hacker Way, I was in awe. In nearby Mountain View, I couldn't believe how nearly every building in the city was branded with Google's logo.

I saw corporate buses and colorful bikes whizzing around and young professionals with corporate badges on their hips and branded backpacks on their backs.

While Silicon Valley may be the tech capital of the world, I'd never live there. For one thing, I couldn't afford it; the cookie-cutter neighborhoods of Silicon Valley are reserved for millionaires and the hillside mansions for billionaires. I, on the other hand, commuted from San Francisco via corporate shuttle bus.

But I wouldn't have wanted to live there anyway. The social scene was dead, the city wasn't walkable, and the nightlife was nonexistent. Nobody I knew went to happy hour after work, restaurants closed early, and most people only lived there because of the proximity to work.

Chicago has a down-to-earth social scene and affordable, family-friendly neighborhoods

I moved to Chicago with my wife in 2019, transferring to Google's Chicago office. The cost of living in Chicago was much cheaper, my commute would be shorter, and we'd be closer to her family in Michigan and mine in Maryland.

Chicago doesn't have the buzzy tech scene or beautiful weather of San Francisco and Silicon Valley, but it's no slouch when it comes to career opportunities. More Fortune 500 companies are headquartered in Chicago than in almost every other city in the US, and the job opportunities are much more diverse than what you'll find in the tech-centric San Francisco and Silicon Valley.

From Google's office in Chicago's West Loop, I can see McDonald's global headquarters down the street and a number of other premier employers dotting the city skyline.

Chicago is a city that likes to party, making San Francisco look sleepy by comparison. Bars don't close until 2 a.m., with some staying open until 4 a.m. Chicago's Lake Michigan beach scene is much livelier than that of San Francisco. But the social scene also has a down-to-earth vibe; people are Midwest nice and seem to live at a more casual pace.

The best part about Chicago is the moderate cost of living. I was able to afford a three-unit home with rental potential in Chicago for $830,000 — a price I'd never find in San Francisco — that's in a walkable neighborhood. It's the perfect blend of family-friendly city life. Our three-year-old son loves taking the train home from daycare and running wild at one of the city's many playgrounds.

I think Chicago is the best of the three places to start a family

After working in these three awesome places, I've realized that even the best cities have their flaws.

San Francisco has the coolest social scene and overall vibe, but it's one of the worst cities for settling down because of its high costs.

Silicon Valley offers the best career opportunities, but its social scene is lacking since everything there is about work, work, work.

Chicago is the best of the three locations to start a family due to its affordability and comfortable pace of life, but it's not quite as cool as San Francisco and can't match the career opportunities offered in Silicon Valley.

Overall, though, it's hard to beat Chicago's mix of career opportunities, vibrant social scene, and opportunities to start a family.

If you've moved around for work and would like to share your experiences of different cities, email Jane Zhang at [email protected].