Personal updates & leaving Google

July 06, 2021

Six years after joining Google to work on Project Sunroof, and later Environmental Insights Explorer, this will be my last week at the company. Enough essays have been written about burnout in the past few months: from smug takes on millennial privilege, to sweeping predictions about the future of work. None of those articles have felt satisfying, and I'm not eager to write my own. So I'll just say that the past year was challenging, despite working alongside wonderful people.

For now I plan to rest, build a few side projects, and freelance part time. I remain very interested in environmental data and policy, and expect to do more of that in the future. Recent reading includes Saul Griffith's Rewiring America — a short, memorable handbook for the next ten years — and Elizabeth Kolbert's Under a White Sky, a thoughtful but sobering look at the reshaping of our planet.

While I won't be considering full-time employment much for the next few months, I'll continue to be active in the open source community, and spending more time writing. If you're interested in helping me make those into sustainable parts of my work, I'm also opening a GitHub Sponsors page. To get in touch about freelance work or other questions, please reach out to contact@donmccurdy.com.