I work at Google and saw AI change the tech industry. Here’s how I upskilled and made a ‘future-defining’ career pivot.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Gautami Nadkarni, 33, who lives in New Jersey. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

In 2024, six years into my time at Google, I started questioning myself.

I joined as a customer engineer in the Google Cloud org in 2018. My job was to design scalable cloud solutions that would help Google’s enterprise customers manage their data and operations. At the time, cloud computing was the thing everyone in the industry was talking about.

By 2023 and 2024, AI was cropping up more in my projects and client conversations. In one, customers said they wanted to implement AI in every part of their business. It felt like a huge shift, and I saw the writing on the wall of where the industry was headed.

By early 2025, I made moves to pivot my career into AI. In November 2025, I transitioned at Google from a customer engineer who focused on infrastructure and data analytics at different times to one…