Google hired me as a UX engineer without a college degree

I think everyone would love to work for Google if they had the chance, but I never thought I would make it. I ended up working for Google for six years.

I didn’t take the typical route

I was born and raised in Singapore in a family of five. A degree would have been expensive, but I knew I might not need it. I saw how fast technology was developing.

I remember when I was studying Digital Media Design at Nanyang Polytechnic, my lecturer learned about a new development and taught it to us at the same time.

I had to do my military service in the Singapore Army, so I was a full-time conscript for two years. After I left, I worked at a digital advertising agency in Singapore to save money, and three years later I started applying for internships in the US.

I was sponsored as an intern by Firstborn, a digital agency in New York

I worked in New York City for five months. Then I returned to Singapore where I started my own digital design agency and Firstborn became one of our clients.

After running it for three years, I realized that most of my time was taken up with administrative tasks and I was worried that my development as a programmer was stalling.

I closed my company and returned to the US in September 2015 to join Firstborn full-time. The industry had changed, especially with the introduction of the iPhone, and many app startups had been launched.

I wanted to apply to Google, but I was suffering from imposter syndrome. I didn’t feel like a real developer. I had been building marketing websites that just had to be fun and creative, not for real products that people depended on and used every day.

A friend referred me to Google

After two years in the US, a TV station offered me a job. As I was about to sign the offer, a friend who worked at Google told me that they were looking for UX engineers and she urged me to apply. It was the perfect position for me.

She recommended me and then the hiring manager at Google contacted me. The application process started with a phone interview and a basic technical test. Then I had an on-site interview.

When I went to interview at Google, I didn’t think I was going to get the job, so I just looked at it as an experience. I also thought it was cool that I got the chance to visit Google.

When I entered the Google office, I was surprised by the size of the building.

It spans one street and is a four-minute walk from one end to the other. There are four cafes, each serving different dishes, and baristas pouring coffee.

The interview day consisted of five rounds. I started by presenting my portfolio to five interviewers from different parts of the company.

Then I had three one-on-one interviews where I did technical tests and another one where I did Googliness to see if I would be a good fit with the company culture. The interview process took a whole day.

You can ask any question during lunch that doesn’t count toward your interview grade. I had lunch with the hiring manager who also conducted my phone interview. He made sure I was comfortable and checked that I was mentally ready for the second half of the interview because he knew how exhausting it could be throughout the day.

After the interview, your application goes to the hiring committee, who decides whether to pass or not. Then the offer committee comes back with an offer. This process usually takes several weeks, but they knew I had an offer, so it was only two weeks from first contact to the offer.

I received a propeller cap, a puzzle, a t-shirt and a handwritten welcome card in the mail.

I worked for Google for six years

I’ve worked on everything from search to Google Pay. If you want to move between organizations at Google, you have to apply. Poaching people from other teams is considered bad form.

During the pandemic, I moved to the Mountain View office in Silicon Valley to work on a moonshot for Google at X (formerly Google X). The atmosphere between Google’s New York and California offices is very different. There are a lot more engineers in Mountain View, while New York has a mix of sales, development, and design.

I knew what Mountain View was like because I had been there both for work and as a tourist. The campus had a magical atmosphere. Although it is a relaxed place, you can feel that everything is happening here.

The X office in California had a different atmosphere than the Google office in New York

Robots are everywhere in California. You see them everywhere.

I worked at X for a year until Google Labs took over the project I was working on. I then moved back to New York because I missed the amenities of a city.

What I loved most about working at Google was that it made it so easy to meet some of the most brilliant yet humble people in tech. I’ve been lucky enough to work with some of the smartest people in the space, most recently on a team called Playspace that worked to bring useful generative AI features into Workspace.

I left Google to join an AI startup

Working for a large company like Google can often dilute or delay your impact. In a startup, your survival depends on your contribution. Everything you do can make or break the company.

I left Google in April for a startup called Runway.

I have built close relationships with the people I worked with at Google and that is what I will miss the most.