Last week, I did a quick stop at the Google offices in Austin to check out an event. To be honest, the event itself was pretty high level—more of a surface overview than anything deep. (Worth mentioning: it wasn’t organized by Google, just hosted at their office.)
But the experience at Google’s office made up for it. The team was super friendly. They noticed I was making some content and even offered a private space where they keep the Android mascot, “Bugdroid” (aka “The Bot”).
The best part? Hanging out after the event in the lounge, with some genuinely great food (seriously, 10/10). I had a chance to connect with people working locally—including a fellow software engineer from Argentina, and a quick but productive chat with someone from the Google Cloud team. He pointed me to the resources for startups, showing how to apply for up to $350,000 in Google Cloud credits—definitely a valuable tip for anyone building in a AI-native startup.
Sharing the profiles of a few folks I connected with:
- Vijayan Kandasamy – Principal Software Engineer @ Dell EMC
- Alex Bramall – Head of Operations @ Form Factory
- Lorenzo Peve – Data Engineer @ Haley Aldrich
Sometimes, it’s not about the presentations—it’s about the people you meet along the way.
