Anuja Gaitonde, Associate Product Manager 

Anuja is the Associate Product Manager (APM) for Google’s Duplex on the Web team at Google Assistant in Zurich. Her team’s main goal is to build software that makes tasks such as booking movie tickets and checking into flights easier and more user-friendly.

Anuja joined google in August 2020, just after she graduated from Imperial College, London with a joint Master’s in Electrical and Electronic Engineering with Management. During her undergrad, she tried to gain as much experience as possible and completed multiple summer internships and projects within the Software Engineering, UX Design, and Finance fields. After hearing about her friend’s experience as an APM for Google, she realized that this role incorporated all the individual aspects of her previous projects that she loved the most. She gravitated towards the fact that Product Management required the innovativeness of Software Engineering, the creativity of UX Design, and the strategic thinking of Finance. So, she applied for the role at Google and a few months later, she got the job.

Her day-to-day work is constantly changing, her role requires her to collaborate with multiple different teams within Google which she claims has been a great opportunity to meet other talented engineers, designers, and product managers. One aspect that she claims is unique to working for Google as a Product Manager is the amount of scope and autonomy that she got from the start as well as the terrifying, yet incredibly gratifying, knowledge that the work she does will impact millions of users across the world.

If she could go back in time and give herself career advice, she would tell herself to try and find the opportunity in every experience, to keep getting her hands dirty and try new things because “there is always something to learn and you’ll always end up on the right path eventually”.

If you would like to keep up with Anuja, follow her on @agaitonde on Instagram!

Eimear Crotty, Software Engineer, Site Reliability Engineering 

Eimear is a Site Reliability Engineer (SRE) who works on the Google Cloud Platform and Memorystore. As an SRE, her job is to ensure that Google is functioning properly 24/7. She also focuses on ensuring that new features created by other Google engineers work at Google’s scale.

Eimear studied a BSc in Computer Science at University College in Ireland. As part of her work experience, she worked at a software company called Teamwork and in the Research Lab of Electronics at MIT. After working at MIT, she was contacted by a recruiter from Google, spent a few months interviewing, and landed a position in Dublin. She has stayed with the same team since 2017 because she has enjoyed the challenges that come with working with Google Cloud.

Eimear’s day-to-day is a mix of programming, meetings, and reading and writing documents. Once every few weeks, she goes “on call” which means she is the primary engineer responsible for the system. She admits this can be an intimidating responsibility, but at the same time, this task allows her to learn more about the system and its dependencies. She explains that it also helps that Google has a “blameless post-mortem culture” which means that if something goes wrong, the system, and not the engineer, is at fault.

Eimear also has a passion for increasing knowledge about tech among young students, as she felt that during her education, teachers would push traditional roles in health care, and she was not even aware of Computer Science or Software Engineering until right before she started college.

Her best career advice is to treat everything as a learning experience, and always ask questions.

If you want to learn more, follow Eimear on Twitter @EimearCrotty!

Sanya Rai, Interaction Designer

Sanya is an Interaction Designer at Google’s Munich office. As an Interaction Designer, her main goal is to maintain Google’s culture of innovation and collaboration and to make sure that this culture is not compromised as the company grows larger in scale. More specifically, her team works to create solutions to keep Googlers (Google employees) in hybrid workplaces connected despite complications such as working across different time zones.

Before attending university, a career counsellor introduced her to product design and although she had no experience with drawing or fine arts, she was so intrigued by the field that she applied and got accepted to Srishti, an art school in Bengaluru. In the middle of her degree, she gained the opportunity to participate in an exchange program at the University of Michigan which showed her the wide scope of the Design field. This experience also encouraged her to explore the international side of design which led to her applying abroad for her Master’s. She ended up at the Royal College of Art in London and Imperial College to pursue a dual degree in Innovation Design Engineering. After working in many different design projects ranging from AI to coffee makers, Sanya was contacted by a Google recruiter in 2019 and she landed her current role as an Interaction Designer.

She starts her day at Google with a simple “Good morning” to her fellow collaborators followed by check-ins with her product triad which includes herself, the engineering lead, and the product manager lead. She finds herself collaborating with several other Google teams such as Google Calendar and Google Workplace.

As for career advice, she claims that what has worked for her personally is to trust your instincts and knowledge, and to voice your opinions but in a respectful manner.

You can follow Sanya on Twitter @sanyaraig!

Alicja Baszak‎, Software Engineer

Alicja is a Software Engineer at Google in Warsaw and works on the Google Cloud Console. She has been with Google for more than a year but has worked as an intern for the company before being hired full-time. During her internship, she worked in different product areas such as Google Ads and Internal Tools. After gaining these experiences and finishing her studies, she knew she wanted to work for Google.

Her typical day starts with yoga which prepares her for the day’s challenges. She then responds to emails, attends team meetings, writes code for her multiple projects, and helps Nooglers (New Google employees) with their tasks.

Alicja explains that at Google, employees are allowed to work on “20 percent projects” which are projects that are not related to the employee’s core role. For her 20 percent project, Alicja is focusing on increasing diversity at Google through organizing events and activities.

The best career advice that Alicja has to offer is to try as many different projects as possible during your studies, and to diversify your experience by working for various companies which will broaden the chance to find what you are truly interested in.

Joanna Chwastowska, Engineering Lead

Joanna is the Engineering Lead at the Google Health team based in London. She manages a team of over 30 engineers who build mobile products for clinicians. Her team collaborates with other professionals such as clinicians, researchers, and other health care experts to design and create clinical tools and technological solutions that provide care teams the products they need to deliver the best care to their patients.

Joanna was first introduced to Engineering during her senior year of high school when her friend showed her how to use HTML and Java script. She was immediately intrigued by the ability to translate her ideas into working prototypes. This led to her pursuing an education in Computer Science instead of Architecture. Her decision proved to be fruitful as it gave her the opportunity to apply for a position at Google’s office in Kraków, Poland in 2007. During her time at Google, she has worked on multiple projects from building internal tools to cross platform applications, to Google’s infrastructure allocation.

Joanna is also a mentor for women engineers and provides her mentorship through internal and external programs.

Joanna’s best career advice is to follow your heart and passion when choosing your career path. She explains that although STEM fields can be challenging, it is easier to work through and adapt to challenges when you feel passionate about your work.

Follow Joanna @JoannaToday on Twitter for more content about Google and Engineering!