I rejected a job at Google — but then got laid off by Amazon. I don't regret my decisions.

Beatrice Nolan
·5 min read

  • Matan Gans is a former software development engineer at AWS.

  • He's been a victim of Big Tech's sweeping layoffs since graduating college.

  • Coinbase rescinded an offer days after his graduation. Months later, Gans was laid off from Amazon.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Matan Gans, a former software development engineer at AWS and startup founder. It has been edited for length and clarity.

When I graduated from Brown University in 2022, I was weighing up two exciting job offers — one from Google and one from Coinbase.

Google was kind of a dream job for me, but the job was in-person and meant uprooting my life in Boston and moving to California.

I also had a return offer from my previous summer internship with Amazon Web Services, which I choose not to accept because it was based in Seattle.

The Coinbase job was fully remote, so I was faced with this difficult decision of staying on the East Coast or moving to the West Coast.

I ended up deciding to stay in Boston and accept the Coinbase offer. I was a bit hesitant because although cryptocurrency was going through a big hype at the time, I was really excited about the idea of going into Big Tech and having a stable job.

It was difficult to say no to Google, but it just came down to the remote working opportunity.

But a week after graduation I got an email from Coinbase saying they were rescinding my offer amid a round of layoffs.

Flood of support

It was obviously disappointing and really shocking — I'd been excited about the Coinbase job.

It took a while to get over this initial shock. I decided to post on LinkedIn about it because I saw others were doing so.

The response was amazing — I had recruiters flooding my LinkedIn inbox and loads of support from people in the tech industry. I even got fast-tracked to the last round of interviews for one company looking to scoop up laid-off Coinbase employees.

My manager from a summer internship I did at Amazon also got in touch. He offered me a job on the same team I'd done my internship with. Although the team was based in Seattle, he said the company had a remote option that would allow me to work from Boston.

Although I had another offer on the table, I accepted the Amazon job.

It felt like a safer choice because it was a Big Tech company — and I already knew the team.

I started working as a software development engineer at Amazon Web Services (AWS) in August 2022. The job turned out to be fantastic and I learnt a lot.

Amazon layoffs

When Amazon started cutting jobs, it was a big shock.

The sweeping layoffs were obviously concerning given that I'd already been through a similar situation just months earlier.

There was a sense within the company that the layoffs wouldn't reach AWS because it was profitable. I survived the first two rounds of cuts in early 2023 and gradually started to feel secure in my job again.

But, in February 2023, Amazon announced a return-to-office policy.

This was alarming as the main reason I took the job was because of the remote option. I was living with my partner in Providence, Rhode Island, so the commute to the Boston office would have been long.

Not only that, but my team was still based in Seattle.

I could have made the commute to the Boston office work, but I started to get the sense from my manager they'd rather have me in Seattle. I told them if I had to relocate I would, but I'd rather stay where I was.

My managers tried to move me to another team located in Boston and never implied my job was in jeopardy.

But then, on a regular Tuesday morning, I logged onto my computer and found I had lost access to the company Slack. Sure enough, when I opened my email I discovered I'd been laid off.

The two people laid off from my team were remote workers. I don't know why I was cut — I tried to push for a reason but the company told me it was a mix of things and not just because I was remote.

The new normal

I posted on LinkedIn again after I was laid off from Amazon but it went much less viral this time.

It didn't get this stream of responses I had received after my Coinbase offer was rescinded.

It felt like all the tech companies were doing huge layoffs. I applied to a few jobs and got a few automated rejections, but each day I was seeing more people laid off.

At the beginning I regretted not taking the original job at Google. Although Google did some layoffs, they didn't axe as many roles proportionally as Coinbase did.

Over time, I've learned not to have regrets around that choice.

I think the work experience at Google would have been very similar to Amazon. It might even have been worse for me because I would've been so far away from from home and my personal relationships on the East Coast.

Post-layoff life

Since I was laid off from Amazon, the main thing I've been doing is setting up my own start-up.

On the side, I also teach with a program that offers extracurricular coding and AI research to students and volunteer as a coding instructor with another program.

I also took some contact software engineering work with very early stage startups. I was interested in entrepreneurship after having experienced big tech and trying out these jobs inspired me to start building my own venture.

My main takeaway about getting laid off is how hard it can be to mentally reconfigure your life.

My immediate reaction for several months was disillusion with the with Big Tech, but now I feel positive about my experiences. This feels like a really good time in my life to not take a straightforward path.

There is a silver lining to the layoffs as they allowed me to take to time out, find myself, and figure out what I enjoy.

Read the original article on Business Insider

  • Up next
  • Up next
  • Up next
  • Up next

Latest Stories

  • Trump’s lawyers ask NY judge who oversaw civil fraud case to recuse himself

    Lawyers for Donald Trump asked the New York judge who ordered the former president to pay nearly half a billion dollars to recuse himself from the case alleging the judge engaged in “prohibited communications” with a real estate lawyer about the case before issuing his decision.

  • Top Florida law enforcement official sues DeSantis, alleging he was fired for blowing the whistle

    A former top law enforcement official in Florida is accusing Gov. Ron DeSantis and his top aides of forcing him to retire after he refused to carry out orders he says were illegal or inappropriate, according to a lawsuit filed overnight. Shane Desguin, a career employee of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, rose to become the agency's chief of staff. "Despite his stellar work performance during his employment," the lawsuit says, Desguin "was subjected to disparate treatment, different terms and conditions of employment, and held to a different standard because he reported Defendants' malfeasance, gross misconduct and unlawful employment activities and was subject to retaliation thereafter."

  • Russia, China find payments workaround as US sanctions net widens, sources say

    MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russia-China trade options have narrowed since the U.S. imposed sanctions last week on the only Russian bank branch in China, but President Vladimir Putin's Chinese visit last month has helped ensure the two countries have payment alternatives for now, three sources said. Since Putin's visit, specially authorised banks have been set up in border regions which allow Russian firms to open non-resident accounts (NRA) with Chinese banks, a step that has become more important since VTB's Shanghai branch was targeted with sanctions, they told Reuters. Trade between Russia and China ballooned to a record $240 billion in 2023.

  • Under Armour Agrees to Pay $434 Million to Settle Class Action Lawsuit

    The case turned on the company’s accounting and disclosures tied to its sales in 2015 and 2016.

  • I Retired at 65: Here’s My Monthly Budget

    Retiring can be an intimidating step, no matter what age you are. Stretching a limited income to cover all your expenses is tough. But Eleanor Clark has figured out how to live comfortably on her...

  • The Difference Between Middle and Upper Middle Class Is Just $20K — How To Bridge That Gap

    If one of your goals for the New Year involved reaching a new income bracket, it might not be so out of reach after all -- but it will take some effort to get there. The difference between middle and...

  • EU tariffs on China not a 'punishment', says German economy minister

    BEIJING (Reuters) -Proposed European Union tariffs on Chinese goods are not a "punishment", Germany's Economy Minister Robert Habeck told Chinese officials in Beijing on Saturday. Habeck's visit to China is the first by a senior European official since Brussels proposed hefty duties on imports of Chinese-made electric vehicles (EVs) to combat what the EU considers excessive subsidies.

  • Current And Former Theme Park Workers, Tell Us What Most People Would Be Surprised To Learn About Your Job

    We want to hear from you!

  • Elon Musk lawsuits: All the biggest cases and investigations facing Tesla, SpaceX, and the billionaire CEO himself

    Elon Musk and his companies Telsa, SpaceX, and X face numerous lawsuits and investigations. He's also sued people like his ex Grimes and other groups.

  • Retirement Planning: How Much the Average Person Under 70 Spends Monthly

    As people move toward retirement age, having a realistic budget is imperative to cover monthly expenses. While everyone has a different financial situation and spending habits, understanding how much...

  • 5 Reasons Your $1 Million Retirement Will Only Last 17 Years in Nevada

    If you're planning to retire soon, you already know that your desired location can have a big impact on how much money you'll need to have saved. Costs for housing and groceries can quickly eat up...

  • Darren Woods’ Investments Have Given Exxon Mobil a Financial Edge

    The CEO slashed costs and spent money when others were skeptical. Now, Exxon is brimming with low-cost oil.

  • Canada April retail sales up 0.7%, a drop likely for May

    OTTAWA (Reuters) -Canada's retail sales expanded by 0.7% in April as expected, bucking a trend of decline in the last three months, as sales at gasoline pumps boosted the overall numbers, data showed on Friday. Retail sales, which comprise sales of motor vehicles, clothing, furniture, food and beverages among others, grew to C$66.80 billion ($48.78 billion) on a monthly basis, Statistics Canada said. For May, a flash estimate by Statscan surveying only half of the respondents for a preliminary estimate showed that retail sales would likely drop by 0.6%.

  • Where Have All the Pensions Gone? How Are Gen X and Millennials Replacing Them?

    Pensions used to be the "norm" when you worked for an employer. You trade your hours working for a company, and in return, the company will support you during retirement. Sounds pretty good, doesn't...

  • Nvidia, Microsoft or Apple: Here's which stock analysts are betting on

    Investing.com – The battle between Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) for the title of the world's highest market capitalization has been ongoing since early January, when the iPhone maker ceded the crown to the company founded by Bill Gates, only to reclaim it on June 12. A few days later, NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) joined the race, and with the help of artificial intelligence, managed to occupy the top spot for market cap worldwide, albeit for a single session.

  • 2024 Rimac Nevera Photos in Gold Country

    The all-electric Rimac Nevera Time Attack is, depending on how you define the term, the quickest production car in the world. Rimac will make only 12 of them. This one was the first built and is the only one that exists in the Western Hemisphere.

  • Japan's June factory activity eases as costs rise, PMI shows

    Japan's factory activity expanded for a second straight month in June but the pace of growth eased as orders weakened and cost pressures intensified, a business survey showed on Friday. "Japan's private sector expansion stalled midway into the year," said Jingyi Pan, economics associate director at S&P Global Market Intelligence, which compiled the survey.

  • Europe risks trade war, China says before German talks

    BEIJING (Reuters) -Beijing warned on Friday that escalating frictions with the European Union over electric vehicle imports could trigger a trade war, as Germany's economy minister arrived in the Chinese capital with the proposed tariffs high on his agenda. Robert Habeck's three-day trip to China is the first by a senior European official since Brussels proposed hefty duties on imports of Chinese-made electric vehicles to combat excessive subsidies. In an unexpected twist, Habeck - from the ecologist Greens Party which is a junior partner in Germany's fractious three-way coalition - criticised Berlin's 11-month-old China strategy document as too short-termist and not in sync with the China strategies of other EU countries.

  • Two people arrested on suspicion of running illegal £1bn crypto exchange

    The suspects, aged 38 and 44, were interviewed under caution by the Financial Conduct Authority and released on bail.

  • HPE-Nvidia partnership will make AI enterprise history: CEO

    Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) announced a new partnership with chip giant Nvidia (NVDA) at its HPE Discover 2024 event in Las Vegas this week, where the former unveiled its "Nvidia AI Computing by HPE" portfolio of AI products. Among these new offerings is the HPE Private Cloud AI. HPE CEO Antonio Neri joins Yahoo Finance's Josh Lipton and Yasmin Khorram "And the core of that, we really focus on the enterprise segment of the market, because when you think about AI, there is the model builders and the hyperscalers, you have the sovereign clouds, and the enterprise," Neri says. "Obviously, we've already seen tremendous traction on the model builder side and the hyperscalers, but we focus on enterprise. And at the core of that is how we deliver a simple AI solution to consume on-premises." Neri was joined onstage by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang to announce this partnership at Neri's keynote address on Tuesday, June 18. Neri foresees the partnership to "accelerate that adoption" of HPE's enterprise services. Many consumers are still hesitant to engage with AI, which Neri assures he has greatly considered "the human focus" and concern about data security: "And so the point is that we built all of those guardrails into the offer itself. And we believe this is going to help customers feel more comfortable around this. But ultimately is the data-first approach. And we need to make sure that we protect our data." Neri also touches upon Hewlett Packard Enterprise's AI servers and what sets them apart from the rest of the industry. For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Market Domination. This post was written by Luke Carberry Mogan.