Month: November 2025

• Deep Shah has been a Google employee since 2018.
• Support from mentors and peers helped him transition from India to the US at Google.
• Having a clear agenda with mentors maximizes learning and growth in tech and AI careers.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Deep Shah, a 30-year-old senior software engineer at Google, based in Mountain View, CA. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

Since I joined Google in 2018, it has been amazing to see the impact I’ve had.

I started at Google Bangalore in India, where I was part of a team using machine learning and AI on Google Maps. After spending a few years there, I moved to the US in 2021 to work at the Google Mountain View location in California.

I’ve been at Google Mountain View for around four years, and over my career, I’ve learned that mentors are one of the greatest things to have. Good mentors have changed the way I approach problems and have impacted the engineer I’ve become.

Older peers became my first mentors

Growing up, I played computer games a lot and wanted to develop my own games. That was the main reason that I chose computer engineering in the first place.

I also learned through conversations with peers older than me, who were already working on their bachelor’s. They told me this field involves a lot of logical reasoning and automating machines to do things on my behalf, which was very intriguing.

During my bachelor’s, I became involved in competitive computer programming. That helped me get reach-outs from leading tech companies in India, and was one of the main reasons I got my first job.

A friend helped me decide to pursue a role at Google

At my first job out of school, I was part of an AI and machine learning team that helped advertising clients. During that time, I learned a lot of the fundamentals about how AI and machine learning work.

I was there for almost a year and a half, and then I had the opportunity to apply for a position with Google. Fortunately, I also had a friend who worked at Google, so I was able to talk to him and ask whether it would be a good fit for me.

After talking to him, I was convinced that Google could be the right place for me. I went through a standard Big Tech interview process, and then I landed my job at Google.

My network helped me transition from India to the US

Moving to the US was a big transition, but I wanted to be involved in improving the way users use Google search. The team working on that project was based in Mountain View, and my skill set was a very good match, so I decided to relocate here in 2021.

Google India has a culture very similar to that of Google US, making for a smooth transition. Outside work, I needed to get used to a lot of different things. Searching for housing is very different here, and so is setting up healthcare. I also had to get a car.

However, I had a couple of more senior peers and friends here who were able to guide me through these transitional things, which I was very thankful for.

Mentorship can determine what kind of engineer you are

I’ve been fortunate to have had a lot of great mentors throughout my career, as well as in my undergrad, who actually supported me and gave me good ideas.

College students should try to be involved with a professor or someone who can give them exposure to any machine learning or AI problems that they’re excited about, no matter how small or large.

You can always start small, but as time passes, more and more things will naturally become attached to a project, and your ownership and confidence with it will evolve. That will also be a great addition to your résumé, demonstrating that you already possess the skills and experience required to succeed in a working environment.

Having a clear agenda with your mentor makes a big difference

My mentors taught me how to navigate organizational dynamics and influence stakeholders — skills that are rarely learned just by doing the core work.

It should be very clear what specific things you’d like to use your mentor for, and I recommend having a proper agenda to go over together. It helps them give you the right advice, and you can have clearer expectations.

Each mentor will teach you different things, and the person doesn’t necessarily need to be a professor. They could be an alumnus or someone who’s more senior at your college. It doesn’t matter how you find them, but they should be someone who you think is a good role model.

Do you have a story to share about mentorship in Big Tech? Contact this reporter, Agnes Applegate, at aapplegate@businessinsider.com.

• Google’s dominance is facing new challenges as search habits shift.
• Social apps like TikTok and AI chatbots like ChatGPT are changing how we look for information.
• This story is one of a five-part series exploring the changing online search landscape.

It’s never been easier to ditch Google search.

Just ask Mohamed Mura, a 37-year-old professional based in London, who began pulling back from the search engine during the pandemic.

Instead of typing into Google, he turned to TikTok for questions like “how to change a watch band.” With the launch of ChatGPT in 2022, Mura’s Google usage dropped further. He said the AI chatbot felt like a “second brain or agent” he could bounce ideas off of.

He now uses a mix of tools for search, like ChatGPT, Grok, TikTok, Reddit, Perplexity, and yes, still sometimes Google. He’s not alone. AI search tools are becoming daily habits for many.

When presented with a list of tools to use when considering a purchase, US consumers said they preferred AI chat interfaces to traditional search engines, according to an August survey of about 2,000 respondents by the consulting firm McKinsey.

Young people, in particular, are also looking beyond Google to social apps like TikTok, Reddit, Pinterest, or Instagram to find information. Nearly half (46%) of Gen Z users prefer to search on social media rather than Google, according to a survey last year from Forbes Advisor and Talker Research. That figure generally lines up with Google’s own data on Gen Z’s search preferences.

“Social search is definitely a hot topic,” Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf, a senior analyst at Forrester, told Business Insider, especially as “search behaviors fracture or distribute among a broader array of platforms aside from just Google.” In fact, more US consumers are turning to social media platforms than to AI options, such as ChatGPT or Microsoft Copilot, according to a recent survey from EMARKETER, Business Insider’s sister company.

Google is still king among traditional search engines and AI search tools, controlling around 90% of the global market, according to network services firm Cloudflare. Google has also responded to competition by adding AI overviews to many of its search results.

In its earnings report last month, Google’s parent company Alphabet said quarterly sales from Google search rose 15% from a year ago to $56.6 billion, making up more than half of the company’s overall revenue.

Google’s market dominance in traditional search doesn’t factor in searches on video apps like TikTok or e-commerce tools like Amazon, however. And Google’s grip on the overall search landscape could loosen as the internet splinters into smaller communities.

Beyond AI chatbots and video apps, a slew of new search-focused startups, including Lore, a fandom-focused search engine, and Daydream, an e-commerce AI search tool for shopping, have emerged to support the demand for something new.

So, where are the best places to go if you want to try a new way of searching? It depends on what you’re looking for.

Here are some search tips and tricks:

Finding new recipes or places to visit

AI tools like ChatGPT or Anthropic’s Claude are great at concocting original recipes with ingredients you already have at home. Video apps like TikTok or Instagram let you search for a recipe and actually see the cooking process before you try it.

Finding new recipes was the most common use case for TikTok’s search engine, a 2023 survey from Adobe found, with people saying they were looking for “video tutorials,” “product or service reviews,” and “personal stories or anecdotes” on the app.

Video reviews are also handy when planning a trip, allowing you to see a hotel or destination before deciding to visit. TikTok released a product this year that lets users book hotels directly from videos in the app.

Young people “are looking for product or service recommendations and they’re looking for restaurants to eat at,” Mitchell-Wolf said. Social platforms are a “flourishing environment” for this category of search, she added.

Finding new outfits or things to decorate your home

If you’re looking for inspiration, Pinterest can be a first stop in the search journey.

Design, particularly, is the top search use case (62%) for the moodboarding platform, according to a March survey from Adobe. Fashion advice was also popular.

A recent example: In August, Pinterest shared that searches for “vintage fall aesthetic” were up 1,074% year-over-year, and that there were upticks in searches around thrifted outfits, kitchen accessories, and interior decorating.

Social platforms like Instagram and TikTok can also be places to find inspiration. And for fashion specifically, there’s a wave of new startups building shopping search tools, from personalized e-commerce search engines like Daydream to more niche platforms helping people find secondhand items, such as Beni.

If you already have a product in mind to buy, you might turn to the giants Amazon and Walmart. EMARKETER found that 56% of US consumers go to Amazon for search and 45% to Walmart.

“Amazon has become a major destination for product search,” said Sky Canaves, a principal analyst at EMARKETER. “They’ve taken share from Google in that space over the years because they have so many products that Prime members can typically start a search there, and then maybe they go to Google next.”

Searching the web without prying eyes

Google, famously, is a data-collection machine. When you’re searching in its app, Chrome, Gmail, or some other Google-owned product, you’re helping the company build a detailed advertising profile on who you are and what you’re looking to buy.

Search engines and browsers like DuckDuckGo and Brave offer tools for privacy-conscious users who don’t want their search habits tracked.

“We know that people are tired of being exploited online by scammers and by data-hungry companies who essentially have made it their business model to sell users out to the highest advertising bidder,” said Beah Burger-Lenehan, SVP of product at DuckDuckGo.

Finding answers from real people

Sometimes websites don’t have the answers we’re looking for. We want answers from everyday people.

Have you found yourself typing “[insert search topic here] reddit” into Google? You’re not alone.

“Particularly with Gen Z or younger users, if they want to see what other people are saying, maybe they don’t start on Google, they will start on TikTok or go to Reddit,” Canaves said.

Reddit told investors that in the third quarter, over 75 million people searched on its platform each week.

The top search categories on Reddit are tech, news, and personal finance, according to a 2024 Adobe survey. However, a good chunk of people are also turning to the platform for career or relationship advice, as well as product recommendations.

In December, the company launched a chatbot search tool called Reddit Answers that summarizes user recommendations and discussions in a conversational manner. Daily query volume for the feature is up over 20% since last quarter, the company told Business Insider.

If you just don’t want to use Google, try these

If you’re simply tired of staring at the Google search bar and want something that’s similar, but not owned by Google, there’s always Microsoft’s Bing.

You can also try out AI-powered browsers like OpenAI’s Atlas and Perplexity’s Comet, which allow you to search conversationally or use an AI agent to complete certain tasks.

Some AI search tools offer voice assistants, which can make searching more seamless.

“It’s a lot less friction if you’re speaking to an AI assistant versus having to type a long query,” Canaves said. “The output that you get will be a lot more nuanced than what you would get from typing in three or four keywords into a Google search bar.”

• A version of this story originally appeared in the BI Tech Memo newsletter.
• Sign up for the weekly BI Tech Memo newsletter here.

Data guru Hakeem Shibly recently dug into every US software engineering pay package shared with Levels.fyi in the past year.

His goal: Figure out which cities pay engineers the best after adjusting for the cost of living.

The Greater Seattle Area tops the list, followed by Austin — ahead of the big dog, Silicon Valley, which ranked third.

A few surprises: Denver and Boulder edge out bigger, older hubs such as Chicago. The Raleigh-Durham research area in North Carolina ranks pretty high, offering solid compensation along with a reasonable cost of living.

Want more options beyond Big Tech hubs like Silicon Valley and the Seattle area? San Diego, Dallas, and Atlanta offer software engineers a solid combination of pay and manageable living expenses, according to Levels.fyi data.

If you want to know which tech jobs pay what kind of money, check out Business Insider’s salary data here.

And here’s the data from Levels.fyi, in a handy chart from BI’s awesome graphics crew:

Sign up for BI’s Tech Memo newsletter here. Reach out to me via email at abarr@businessinsider.com.