This month, I begin a new job working as a User Experience Designer for Google. I am terribly excited.
A little over a year ago, I wrote about how I had adopted a number of Google products for my everyday needs. I mentioned Google Reader, GMail, and personalized search. Since that time, I have also become a fan of Google Analytics, Google Earth, Google Adsense, Google Maps, Google Video, and Google Calendar. As a passionate user of Google products, I cannot begin to tell you how happy I am to know that I will soon be contributing to those products.
For over two and a half years I have worked for Hoover's. Hoover's has been the best place for which I've ever worked. The people at Hoover's rock and I am proud of the work I've done there and the opportunity that Hoover's provided me. And even if we often had to explain to people that we didn't sell vacuum cleaners or chicken-fried steak, we were busy creating some truly kick-ass products. Only a place like Google could have lured me away.
Interviewing with Google is famously intense. Sending my resume to Google felt like buying a lottery ticket. Graduating to the next step in the interview process is not unlike having your numbers appear, one by one, on the television screen. As you get closer to the end, the stakes go up and emotions run high. When the call finally comes, you can hardly believe it. Boom - your life is changed.
The decision to leave Hoover's wasn't an easy one. I wasn't really looking to leave when I applied to Google. Many of my friends scoffed when I tried to explain my difficulty. "It's Google," they would say, every one of them, with this sort of "what-the-fuck-is-wrong-with-you" emphasis in their voice.
Typically, in my life, I make snap decisions. I tend to feel that making a decision is better than not, even if my decision turns out to be a poor one. I believe this because, for me, poor decisions have a way of working themselves out anyway and I learn from the experience. But I recognized that I had an opportunity to deliberate a bit on this one, and so I gave it a great deal of thought. That I decided to do what I would certainly have done had I made a snap decision doesn't invalidate that process, but I don't think I've gotten religion on the need for careful consideration, either.
What will I be working on? I have no idea. But I can point you to this design exercise I did as part of the interview process wherein I redesigned a Google Video page. I had a great time doing that and I'm really looking forward to designing Google products for real.
