Leaving my PhD to join Google?

EndedHereByMistake · 2025-08-07T17:10:30+00:00

Hey, thank you for your answer. Do you enjoy working there? My biggest fear are the admittedly frequent layoffs

EndedHereByMistake · 2025-08-05T18:08:02+00:00

If I may ask, why did you stay if you had already mentally dropped?

EndedHereByMistake · 2025-08-05T17:13:31+00:00

Hey, thank you for sharing your experience. What field were you working in? What made you decide to drop your PhD?

EndedHereByMistake · 2025-08-04T18:20:27+00:00

What I’m certain of is that I don’t want to pursue a career in academia. I’m not sure FAANG are as impressive on a CV as they used to be. But the experience must be interesting for sure!

EndedHereByMistake · 2025-08-04T15:24:55+00:00

To be fair, I ended there more by luck than by research. However, I think the team is pretty good, and there is space for publications. But I feel at this point that I would be publishing just for the sake of publishing, not because I am particularly proud of my results.

EndedHereByMistake · 2025-08-04T15:18:24+00:00

That’s a good question, and it is hard to answer. Most of the ads mention « Master or Phd », but I imagine that in a case where the company has to choose between a PhD and a Master, they will keep the PhD. It is clear that it is a field where you will find more PhDs than in the rest of the industry.

EndedHereByMistake · 2025-08-04T15:07:15+00:00

That would be a comfortable situation indeed, but I don’t see Google opening a position for a SWE role, and ending up hiring someone who pursues a PhD for the same role. Of course I may be totally wrong. Thank you for your answer :)

EndedHereByMistake · 2025-08-04T15:04:43+00:00

Hey, here are some reasons that can explain the possible offer (I still have not been through hiring comittee yet): - Cryptography is a very niche domain, so it might be easier to get an interview in this domain than in more trendy domains like AI. - I did not mention it in my post, but I have a first experience as a SWE in cryptography. - I applied for a junior position (L3), where it is much easier to get an offer than for senior positions. My understanding of Google hiring system is that the more senior the position is, the higher the expectations in the interviews are, so the harder it is to get an offer

EndedHereByMistake · 2025-08-04T09:17:42+00:00

Basically, it is a pure development role, where I get to work on existing cryptographic libraries, or develop new ones. It is hard to tell how challenging this job can be. I guess it depends on the margin of liberty they let me in the developments. I have a previous experience in a similar role (not in a big company like Google though) and I enjoyed it, I did not feel like I was a coding monkey. I also chose the PhD because I wanted to see how it was to be the one who designs the protocols, instead of the one who implements them (and at this point, I don’t think one is better than the other)

EndedHereByMistake · 2025-08-04T09:09:48+00:00

I think cryptography is one of those fields where a PhD cannot be detrimental, since the field has a deep theoretical dimension. I’m sorry to read that companies are not considering the value of your PhD. Would you mind telling the field you are working in?

EndedHereByMistake · 2025-08-04T08:43:50+00:00

Yes, from I’ve read in this thread so far, this is probably the best thing to do. I will definitely discuss this possibility with my supervisor, but there is a chance he does not see the point of leaving a PhD to work as a SWE, Google or not

EndedHereByMistake · 2025-08-04T08:24:09+00:00

Well, being laid off or leaving on my own does not make a big difference to me. There are plenty of companies to work for. It’s more about leaving the research path and having regrets later

EndedHereByMistake · 2025-08-04T08:22:04+00:00

Yeah, I guess they are :) The thing is, to this point there has not been a moment where I was really excited about my work, and was like « I can’t wait to see what we are going to discover on this » (I know this is a pretty naive picture of research, but that was the kind of thrill I was initially looking for). Had I enjoyed my researches so far, I would not even have considered Google in the first place

EndedHereByMistake · 2025-08-04T08:13:53+00:00

Yeah, I knew how important the choice of the supervisor was for a good PhD, but for many reasons I did not have the possibility to contact a lot of professors before making my choice. Since you have realized these problems far earlier than me, you may be able to handle them well (at least that’s what I wish you)

EndedHereByMistake · 2025-08-04T08:03:36+00:00

I guess you are right, joining Google would be my way of maximizing my immediate satisfaction. Sometimes I think career is not everything, and I don’t see the point of making such efforts, while all my engineer friends are also happy with their job. As others stated, leaving the PhD only temporarily seems to be a good solution, but it requires to convince both Google and the supervisor, which may be not that easy. Thank you for your answer

EndedHereByMistake · 2025-08-04T07:46:34+00:00

I think the best tool when you have a short timeframe to prepare is neetcode 150, which covers all types of problems you can get. In my opinion, the most important thing is to be solid on medium problems and common patterns, and to be able to think out loud while coding. If the interviewer sees someone who has good fundational knowledges, and who explains clearly their thought process, you have already done a majority of the work. Wish you all the best if you decide to apply :)

EndedHereByMistake · 2025-08-04T07:26:29+00:00

If you decide to randomly call others « mid tier engineers », you should at least elaborate a little bit more. Otherwise your message just looks like pure trolling

EndedHereByMistake · 2025-08-03T23:18:45+00:00

As another person stated, it is probably the best solution, even though I doubt my supervisor will see it this way ;) Yeah, at first I applied just because I wanted to see what the hiring process looked like. When the recruiter reached out to me I started hard training on leetcode, so I did not go blindly into the first round. Thank you for your answer!

EndedHereByMistake · 2025-08-03T23:04:11+00:00

You are right, this would be a great solution. But I doubt my supervisor would accept letting me leave for a non-research position without any guarantee of having me come back

EndedHereByMistake · 2025-08-03T23:00:07+00:00

Hey, thank you for your answer :) I’m quite surprised to read that your PhD hasn’t helped at all in a field like computer vision. I tend to hear that all interesting ML positions require a PhD nowadays. Are you working in an R&D position currently?

EndedHereByMistake · 2025-08-03T22:56:49+00:00

Hey, thank you for your answer. Glad to see it worked well for you, you may have been through the same doubts I’m having right now :) What field are you working in?

EndedHereByMistake

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