Here’s What It’s Like To Be Black @ Google…

“Speaking for myself,” writes Anthony Mays, who describes himself as a software engineer with the company, “working at Google has been both the most rewarding and the most challenging career opportunity of my life for the past two years.”

Mays praises the company’s diversity efforts:

“My team of 24 engineers represents about eight or nine different ethnicities and features three women. They are all really smart, personable people. I am constantly humbled to have the chance to work with them daily. They have been nothing but accepting of me as a person and engineer and have shared my passion for both advocating STEM and donating to charitable causes dear to my heart. I also have a great manager that has been very understanding and supportive of my journey while at Google.”

He also credits the Black Googlers Network with being “an amazing employee resource group at Google,” that has “really been empowered by Google to make the company a welcoming place for the Black community specifically.”

Nonetheless, in Mays’ Irvine office:

“It matters that I only see maybe one or two other Black people that look like me and have a cultural background that’s similar to mine, especially considering how I grew up. There’s a loneliness that I feel sometimes because no matter how great the people I work with may be, there’s still a gap of understanding that they don’t have unless they’ve had the experience of living Black in America.”