How I changed interviewing with Google to building my own business

If you are a software developer, there is a high chance that you have thought of working at one of the big FAANG companies. Why wouldn’t it be? You will be surrounded by many smart developers, get great benefits, from learning a lot to getting free massages and let’s not lie, having one of those companies in your CV looks amazing.

One day I opened my gmail account and guess who had written to me? Google, they wanted to interview me. A friend of mine told me to be careful since it might be a scam. Another one was excited because as she claimed, “I have a friend who works at Google”, even though I hadn’t even had the first interview. I was very confused.

Fun fact, two days before that email, I had shared with the world on Twitter that “in three months from now I will release a SaaS with my cofounder Alba”. After I got the Google news, I created a thread with a poll explaining my situation:

What would you have done, try hard to get into one of the most important tech companies in the world or fight for a life that you had dreamed of for years?

Bronnie Ware wrote the book The Top Five Regrets of the Dying. She was working with people who were about to leave this life and wrote the book to share the top deathbed regrets she heard during that time. The number one regret is:

I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

Truth is, I had done a nine week bootcamp to get a job as a software developer. I wanted to work in IT because I had enjoyed a few of the programming courses I had during university. On top of that, I loved logical subjects, like math and statistics. Programming felt like combining those problem-solving skills, it was similar to making puzzles, which is another activity that I love. The bootcamp was the shortest way I knew to land that first job in tech. So I did it.

If after the program ended or even after a year of programming full time, you would have told me that I got an interview at Google, I would have gone nuts. Preparing for the interview as if my life depended on it.

However, that’s not how I felt and there was Bronnie Ware’s voice, repeating in my mind. If I wanted to keep fighting for my personal project, I just could do it.

CompassMe was born, an accountability health group. Alba and I launched three months after we committed openly on Twitter to that objective. This is what we do in CompassMe. You have a health goal, you share it with your small accountability group, and you share your progress. No shaming, no bad feelings. Just you becoming a better version of yourself on a daily basis.

As for me, I am happy with my decision. December will be the last month as a fulltime employee. I left Germany, that is a thought I often had, specially during winter. I am working on myself, and I am sharing it with the community in CompassMe.

If our motto of being your health partner in crime resonates with you, come and join us. You can reach out to me on Twitter @juliaalvarez23, and we can have a chat about it. Do you also want to commit to improving your health and stop postponing it? I see you in CompassMe!