Quitting A Google Product Manager Role To Do This | Dev Stories

I was ready to walk away from what is a very, very comfortable, great job, knowing that I felt like I had a larger calling and a bigger calling to make sure that my work and everything that I was doing was really helping move Africa forward and move the tech ecosystem there forward. I think, in general, we live in a society that is focused on money and prestige and just the attainment of self-status. I think, ultimately, it's really important to stay grounded in the notion that what happens when there's no money? What happens in a scenario where all of that is taken away? Are you going to be happy with the decisions you made? Are you going to be happy with the ways in which you made other people feel or the impact that you had on this world? Hey, everyone. Welcome back to my channel. Today, we're doing the second episode of the Dev Story series. I'll be interviewing one of my childhood friends, Adesola, who recently left her job at Google as a PM to do something totally different. If you're interested in seeing more videos like this, make sure to tap that like button and leave a nice comment down below. Let's get started. Hi, my name is Adesola Senussi. My first computer science class was actually a summer program I had done a couple summers prior. I had the opportunity to do the lead computer science institute program at Caltech. It was a three-week program. We got an introduction to computer science, and we learned how to make games with Python. From then, I decided that I was definitely going to take a computer science program at my high school. When I got into college, I was ultimately thinking about two, I think, majors. I was really considering economics, which would serve my business interests. I was thinking about computer science as well. Ultimately, what it came down to was just what I felt like would be more of a challenge, but also what I felt like would really push me. That's sort of what ultimately led me in the direction of computer science. Being a Black girl studying computer science at Harvard was definitely challenging. For some reason, I had the impression going in that it would be far more diverse. There were very few Black girls in any of my classes, and so that was definitely challenging. There were definitely instances where I definitely felt like imposter syndrome, or there were instances where I just felt like maybe I didn't necessarily have the confidence to do everything I needed to do. Tips for excelling or studying computer science as a Black girl. I think the biggest thing is just, one, find a support system. I was very fortunate enough to be very plugged into the Women in Computer Science Club at Harvard. Then I think the other advice I'd give is really just having the confidence and believing in yourself. I think a lot of times the biggest battle with computer science is actually the mental battle of just saying like, hey, I can do this, or I've been stuck on this bug for hours. I'm going to figure this out. I think computer science in general, I think one of the amazing things about it is just how it makes you think, and just the ways in which you begin to just analyze and break down complex tasks into small things. I think it was that fundamental analytical thinking and that problem solving that ultimately helps me think critically about the product management role. So the summer after my sophomore year, I had the opportunity to do the engineering practicum program at Google, now called I think the STEP program. It was sort of like an introduction to a software engineering internship. After I did the engineering practicum internship, I made the decision not to continue forth into a software engineering internship my next summer. And that was mainly because during the internship, I really learned a lot about just what it's like to do software development day-to-day, and also what I wanted my work dynamic to be. I learned that it wasn't really the day-to-day of what I wanted. So oftentimes, I was at my computer for quite a long time. I was very insulated in my project, didn't feel like I got to get a full understanding of what the team was working on, like the long-term strategy, the long-term vision. That's when I learned about the product management role in general, and just learned like how it can be a bridge of sort of like business and technical interests, and how it was serving those questions that I was asking of like, you know, what is the broader, like how does this fit into a larger puzzle? So after I graduated from college, I started at Google full-time in the associate product management program. It's like a two-year rotational program where for one year, you're on like one specific team, and for the next year, you get to join a different team at Google, and you are functioning in the product management role, and you know, you sort of are given mentorship and support. You're part of this broader community, and basically, it's a program to introduce and help you build your skills in the product management space. How was the APM program? Yeah, so APM program was great. It was such an amazing experience. Of course, like it was just a lot of great moments of learning and mentorship, and then got to do this really amazing trip between the first and second year of the program that where we visited four countries, and so I got to go to Tokyo, Taipei, Singapore, and Berlin, and it was just such an incredible experience of just learning about the tech ecosystem in different places and just understanding things more from like a global lens rather than just like Silicon Valley. I think the pandemic for a lot of people forced people to kind of slow down and do a lot more reflection, right? So you know, I wasn't traveling anymore. I wasn't sort of like going into the office all the time and really like immersed in the Google scene, and so I think a lot of that reflection just made me think like, okay, what do I really, like if I'm sitting at home and you know working from home all the time, like what work do I truly want to be doing? What's the impact I'm trying to have? I think ultimately why I chose to leave Google is because I really wanted my work to be a lot more targeted and focused like on the African tech ecosystem, and I really wanted to just feel like the work I was doing was helping the most vulnerable and helping, I would say, the most in need. And so in a lot of ways I had always sort of nursed an interest in like the African, and I would say more specifically the Nigerian tech ecosystem for a long time. And so I think in a lot of ways the pandemic did accelerate my thinking around this and accelerated just my thoughts around like, you know, I want to, I want to get back to Nigeria. I want to do work in Nigeria. I want to be part of the booming tech ecosystem in Nigeria. I want all the skills and the sacrifices that my parents made and whatever to map back to Nigeria. And so I think it really just pushed me to say, hey, like, you know, life is short. You know, we don't necessarily have, you can't predict what's going to happen tomorrow. You can't predict what's going to happen in five years, but what you can control is what you're doing now and what you're spending your time on. And the pandemic really just, you know, made me think I want to spend my time working on tech in Nigeria. And it came, became super clear and it was a loud, loud voice in my head. And, you know, from there it just pushed me to, you know, start networking, to start looking for opportunities and ultimately find something that I was really excited to work on. So why the Nigerian tech scene specifically? What was there, what was it about Nigeria that you felt like that was the place you wanted to be? Of course I have the personal connection, you know, being born in Nigeria and having just been, you know, raised, even though I was raised in America, being raised with a very strict and serious Nigerian upbringing. But I think what inspired me about the tech scene specifically there is just the energy and the passion and the grit that everyone has. Starting a company in that environment is difficult from the regulatory pressure to the day-to-day challenges of the environment to like the amount of capital you need to get started. And so I think in general just seeing everyone be able to kind of get through those challenges and really just think about the broader impact and be part of that larger movement is just super inspiring. And so super excited to get immersed, to learn, to grow and to just understand more and think about the ways in which I can get involved and help. I spent almost three years at Google and then ultimately made the decision to leave and join a fintech based out of Lagos, Nigeria called Okra, where we are thinking about helping businesses across Africa just better serve their customers in terms of financial solutions. Why did you decide to go to Okra? So I guess thinking about Okra, it came down to like two main reasons for me. So one was just the people and then the second was just sort of like the mission and the problems that they were trying to solve. So everyone I spoke to was just really inspiring, really smart, really wanted to just work on tough problems with them and I was particularly inspired by the co-founder and CEO Farah and she is just, it was so one amazing that to see a female and black CEO in that context and in the tech scene in general but also she's just super intelligent, super down to earth and you know really you know is thinking just about the true vision and the problems and the impact that she can have. I think the decision to leave Google and join Okra and move to Lagos, Nigeria, yeah in a lot of ways it could be a risk, it is a risky decision right. Google is a very very I would say like great place to work, great benefits, great compensation, all of those things and you know leaving that for a very early company you know can always be just a very very just I would say daunting experience and while it's risky there's a lot of peace I feel about this decision because in a lot of ways it doesn't feel like a decision that is self-serving in nature or really for me. I always thought like I wanted to potentially live in different countries around the world and so I think this is the first step in saying hey I've always thought about living in Lagos. I have that strong sort of like personal tie, I have that sort of like cultural connection, how like let me take a chance and just like kind of follow follow the voice in my head. You know there's been numerous challenges, numerous difficult points at different points in my life you know. At the age of 24 I have lost both of my parents and you know I when I think about those moments you know it can be easy to give up, it can be easy to say you know woe is me and you know I've faced these challenges that you know maybe other people haven't faced by my age like you know I can have a very very like negative outlook I think on life but I think what keeps me going is just just truly feeling like there's a higher calling, a higher purpose, a higher movement at work that's beyond me that's greater than me and it's more powerful than me so ultimately I kind of put it this way too when I was talking to people my former co-workers when I left Google you know I said I think it's a privilege and it's sort of like a blessing to know the type of impact you want to have on the world. I think you know the world that we live in you know oftentimes it can be money or it can be sort of like other influences that push people to do certain things and I think having a very strong conviction of how you want to have impact that is not tied to you know influences from specific people that's not necessarily tied to like making money and making the most money I think it's a blessing and so you know I was ready to walk away from what is a very very comfortable great job knowing that I felt like I had a larger calling and a bigger calling to like make sure that my work and everything that I was doing was really helping move Africa forward and move the tech ecosystem there forward.