I Rejected a Job Offer From Google. Then I Got Laid Off, Twice.

Part I: The New Grad’s Dilemma

This is me right before graduating from Brown University. Look how comfortable I look not knowing that I’m a week away from having my first job taken away.

With the new year reigning in another wave of job cuts in tech, I thought it might be fitting to share my own layoff(s) story—yes, it did happen more than once.

Going into my senior fall at Brown University, I was privileged to have a standing return offer from my past summer’s internship at Amazon Web Services and was on track to complete combined B.S. and M.S. degrees upon graduation. I decided to undergo a new grad job search despite a great internship experience with a really supportive team, mostly because I highly valued the ability to work remotely and stay close to home. It also wouldn’t hurt to see what other options were out there.

One of my top options was Coinbase, which I had applied to on a whim thanks to a referral offer from a past Brown student who used to be my teaching assistant. I didn’t know too much about cryptocurrency at the time, but as the interview process progressed and I learned more, I grew more and more excited. I was thrilled when I received an offer.

Just ten days later, I got a celebratory phone call from my recruiter at Google (after waiting over a month to hear back after a grueling five hours of final round interviews).