Ex-Google techie says he got a promotion and Rs 80 lakh bonus 8 months after being hired

The former Google employee said since he was the youngest member of the team, he was asked to 'take it easy. (Image credit: AFP)

A former Google employee, who worked with the tech giant for three years, has shared how he went from feeling "weird" about not working much while enjoying the perks of the job to leading a team in two months and getting a promotion and a bonus of $95,000 (about Rs 80 lakh) eight months after being hired.

San Francisco-based Jerry Lee said when he joined Google as a strategist, he was the youngest member of his team and his teammates mostly thought of him as a liability.

"My first two months at Google? Honestly, they were weird," he wrote on Threads. "I was told to 'take it easy,' eat the free food, explore campus, you know, the works. Part of me felt like they thought I was just some kid who couldn't contribute much, especially since I was the youngest on a team with folks who were 6+ years out of school. I think they saw me as a potential 'negative' for the first few months."

He, however, got bored of not doing anything after a couple of months and felt like he needed to add value somehow. "I started asking around for projects, anything to contribute. Finally, one of my managers said, 'Hey, why don't you look into this market landscape analysis?' I dove in, and that's when I noticed it – one metric that was way off the charts. Turns out, it was a major product loophole that the team hadn't spotted," Lee said.

And suddenly, he found himself leading a project with two project managers, six engineers, five other analysts, along with other employees from the operations and legal departments. It was a huge deal, Lee said, and the project led to a promotion with a 30 percent raise (about Rs 80 lakh) eight months after joining Google.

"When I received the news, I broke down because this meant I could pay down my student loans faster & buy my parents a well-deserved vacation," he wrote on LinkedIn, urging professionals not to wait for opportunities but to create their own.