Google: I will miss you

Today was my last day at Google.

It has now been 5 years and 5 months since I first joined the company. As a Portuguese guy used to Sun, beach and an extraordinary gastronomic culture, moving to Ireland was a tough decision, but at the same time the smartest I ever made. Joining Google in its European Headquarters brought me an unmatched experience and vision as a professional. During the last 5 years I met so many bright and intelligent people from the most diverse corners of the world. People that have an amazing sense of responsibility, pro-activeness and are fun to work with at the same time. Working for Google has been one of the longest, most enjoyable and self-rewarding experiences I’ve ever had in my career path until today. In one sentence: I found at Google a unique company culture that I expect to take with me throughout the rest of my life and career.

Since my start in March 2006, and during my progress to Webspam Analyst in the Search Quality team, I’ve seen, experienced, learned and worked on so many amazing things. I’ve seen technology that goes well beyond what I could ever dream of and many say it doesn’t exist yet. I feel extremely lucky to have been handed the privilege and the enormous responsibility to touch the core of one of the most successful companies in the world; the ability to see how the massive Internet world moves, how and where trends grow, where it has been and where it’s going… It surely is an amazing view from here.

I’m really proud of the many things I achieved, all the chances Google gave me from learning to travel; representing Google as a Search expert in conferences in Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Dublin and Turkey; the insane amount of interviews I never dreamed I would be giving; and the level of communication I achieved with everyone that follows me on Twitter and on Google+.
I worked with so many amazing people from the most different locations and across many different products, and the list of names would be very extensive to put out one by one, nevertheless there are a few key people I’d like to give my special thanks to (in no particular order) Matt Cutts, Brian White and the whole Webspam team for the knowledge, support and insights they gave me; my managers and language team for driving such a great culture; the whole global Search Quality team for our efforts in improving Search in so many languages, John Mueller and the External Communications stream for being so awesome and always pushing for better ways of communication with the outside world, and all the friends I made inside the company for all the good moments we shared.

Leaving Google, and the extraordinary Search Quality/Webspam team is by far the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make, but I feel that the time has come for me to move on to exciting entrepreneurial challenges, do something new and travel to Brazil. Hopefully you will hear more about it when it’s ready, for now I can only say “stay tuned” and keep your eyeballs in this name Engeeno.

A step back? Maybe… But only to gain momentum.

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