A former Google data engineer traded a six-figure tech salary for a Ph.D. classroom, betting that a more meaningful career is worth the financial risk, according to Business Insider.
Ex-Google engineer’s big pivot
Earlier this year, 30-year-old Joslyn Orgill decided to walk away from what many in tech would consider a dream job: a well-paid data engineer role at Google’s Austin office. For years, she had viewed the company as the pinnacle for aspiring technical talent, interning at ExxonMobil and Adobe and completing an integrated bachelor’s and master’s program in information systems at Brigham Young University in 2021 to get there. Despite owning a home in Austin with her husband and enjoying the stability of a six-figure income, Orgill increasingly felt the job was not the right fit and that her work at the tech giant went largely “unseen,” the report added.
Orgill’s unease grew alongside broader tremors in the tech industry. Just six months into her Google role, the company announced plans in January 2023 to lay off about 12,000 workers, a moment she described as “crazy” and “scary.” At the same time, she saw friends struggle to land jobs amid a hiring slowdown, which eroded her confidence that a better role awaited her at another tech firm. While she looked at internal and external opportunities, she found few openings that genuinely interested her, reinforcing her doubts about long-term job security and satisfaction in big tech.
What ultimately pulled Orgill away from Google was not just push factors like layoffs and stagnation, but a long-standing love of teaching. At BYU, she had taught two sections of an introductory programming and analytics course as an adjunct professor and “loved it,” coming away convinced she was good at it. She had once imagined a path where she would spend years in industry, earn strong paychecks, and return to teaching later in life. Over time, however, she began questioning whether postponing what she truly wanted made sense, worrying she would always wonder, “what if I had?”.
From big tech to Ph.D.
In August, Orgill resigned from Google and enrolled in a computer science Ph.D. program with a focus on education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The program, which typically takes four to six years, has opened a new set of possibilities, including a potential academic career as a professor of computer science or information systems. Her broader goal is to help expand participation in the tech world, especially for students from underrepresented groups, and to make them feel confident they can “do something with technology,” according to Business Insider,
Leaving a lucrative salary meant confronting hard financial trade-offs. Orgill secured three years of funding and a modest monthly stipend from the university, but she and her husband still had to rethink their finances. The couple tried to sell their home in Austin but ultimately chose to rent it out to friends after failing to get an offer they felt comfortable accepting; the rent does not fully cover the mortgage, and they still hope to sell the property in the future. One factor that made the leap possible, she said, was that her husband works remotely and kept his job when they moved to Illinois.
So far, Orgill says the Ph.D. experience has been positive, though moments of doubt persist as she weighs the workload and the sacrifice of a steady salary and generous benefits. When fears creep in, she recalls the joy she felt teaching at BYU as a reminder of why she chose this path. For others considering a drastic career change, her advice centers on two questions: how much financial comfort they are willing to give up in exchange for more meaningful work, and whether they have a support system that can help absorb the shock. She credits her husband’s unwavering encouragement as crucial, saying his desire for her to find something she was genuinely passionate about made the difficult decision feel possible.