Google CEO Sundar Pichai told employees he takes “full responsibility for the decisions that brought us here” after announcing 12,000 layoffs. Brandon Wade/Reuters
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A former Googler described being fired 16 years after starting as an intern.
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“Google was my only career,” Joel Leitch wrote in a LinkedIn post.
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Parent company Alphabet cut 6% of its workforce – or 12,000 employees – in January.
A former Google software engineer who was fired 16 years after starting as an intern has described how he came to terms with the loss of his “only career”.
“Two weeks ago, my entire team was impacted by layoff at Google,” Joel Leitch, who served as technical lead for Google’s purchasing and payments projects, wrote in a LinkedIn post on Saturday. .
“It was a complete shock to me and I still don’t understand why Google would lay off so many experienced, smart, talented, brave and high-achieving employees,” he continued.
“It was a slow process to come to terms with my new reality since Google was my only career,” Leitch said.
According to his LinkedIn profile, the software engineer first worked as an intern at the tech giant in January 2005 before moving to another tech company from January to June 2006, before returning to Google in July of that year. after graduating from the University of Waterloo. He was with the company until his dismissal.
“It was an absolute honor to have the opportunity to work there for so many years. The things I will miss the most are the people and the relationships that have been built,” Leitch wrote in the post.
Leitch and Google did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment outside of normal business hours.
Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google’s parent company, Alphabet, sent a memo to employees on January 20 announcing that the company would lay off 6% of its workforce, or about 12,000 employees.
Pichai said he takes “full responsibility for the decisions that brought us here.”
Leitch isn’t the only one to join LinkedIn after losing his job in the layoffs that have swept the tech industry.
A Microsoft software engineer on an H1-B visa said she wondered where she would live after losing her job, while an 11-year-old Google employee wrote that he and his wife were looking at each other “incredulous” when they found out. They had both been fired from the company.
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