Google Employee Who Lost His Job After 19 Years Of Service Calls It A ‘Blessing’

Google recently undertook a major decision to lay off their employees, impacting numerous roles in its central engineering team. This downsizing trend came after companies like Amazon, Meta, Xerox, Duolingo and Unity also laid off thousands of their workforce. Kevin Bourrillion, a software engineer with a 19 year experience at Google, found himself among those sacked overnight. Despite the abrupt change, the techie is showing a positive outlook on his recent X post. Viewing the situation as an opportunity for a shift, he expressed eagerness to explore new activities such as cycling, reading, drum lessons, traveling and spending quality time with family. With over 16 years on the team he founded, Bourrillion is ready for a new chapter and keen on discovering a fresh perspective on life.

The engineer shared, “End of an era. After 19 years of working at Google, with more than 16 of them on the team that I founded, I made the tough decision yesterday morning to finally bite the bullet and find out that I’d been laid off overnight. Layoffs suck, but in my case, it’s fine, because I’ve needed some kind of change in my life for a very long time and I have no plans to rush into anything else right now. I’ve got too much to do, cycling, reading, restarting my drum lessons, travel, family time, etc. I view my 19 years there and the people I got to work with and things I got to do as an immense blessing. No expressions of sympathy are called for in my case and with that, I’m off to go figure out how to actually live my life.”

Google’s recent round of layoffs came one year after the company announced plans to cut 12,000 roles. In a blog post last January, CEO Sundar Pichai expressed regret about the impact on talented individuals who had been hard to hire and with whom the company had enjoyed working. Pichai acknowledged the weight of the decisions on the lives of the affected employees and took full responsibility for the circumstances leading to the workforce reduction.

The recent job cuts at the tech giant have majorly impacted the teams responsible for Pixel, Nest and Fitbit, according to reports from 9to5Google. As part of this, Fitbit co-founders James Park and Eric Friedman, along with other leaders, are also departing from Google. Following the acquisition of Fitbit in January 2021, James continued as a vice president and general manager of Fitbit. During his tenure, he introduced Pixel Watch and Pixel Watch 2. Park’s last public appearance was in October before the recent organisational changes.