- Shruti Dhumak navigated her maternity leave amid change and layoffs in Google’s AI sector.
- She split her leave to maintain her visibility and manage family support from India.
- Dhumak said she focused on self-improvement and open communication to regain her effectiveness at work.
This as-told essay is based on a conversation with Shruti Dhumak, a cloud client engineer in Google’s Boston office who gave birth in February 2023. It has been edited for length and clarity. Business Insider checked his employment history.
Before I had my son, I had doubts about how I would handle being this overly ambitious person when it came to motherhood.
I’ve been working at Google for about four years. I had my first child in February 2022 and separated my maternity leave in three phases to make the most of the temporary support I received during my family visit.
Between Google’s policy of six months of maternity leavea month of prepartum leave and a month of paid leave, I had a total of eight months away from work. I knew I was lucky to have this time off because it’s rare in the United States, but going on leave and the anxiety of being replaced while I was gone was one of the biggest things. difficult times that I have experienced.
I’m a Customer Engineer and a large part of my role involves managing relationships with our cloud customers. If someone replaces me, customers end up going to that rep and I risk losing my accounts to someone else.
I was also paranoid that my absence or performing below my peak upon my return would make me more vulnerable to termination. Two weeks before my delivery, Google announces the layoff of 12,000 people. As an H-1B visa holder, a layoff would mean I would have to find another job in a few weeks or risk having to return to India with a newborn.
When I came back to work, I wasn’t 100% myself, either as a person or as an employee. I wasn’t 100% efficient. I’ve had times where I’ve broken down and lost my train of thought on a call.
Despite my efforts, business partners preferred other senior people for certain responsibilities. To top it all off, Google was entering the artificial intelligence business. Being away for months Made me feel like I was several years behind.
But I was able to turn around my performance. In 2024, I received awards for my performance. This is the complete opposite of what happened last year.
There are four things I did to make the transition easier for myself.
1. Share my leave
Google gives employees the flexibility to take their maternity leave of up to one year after the baby is born. I divided my leave into three stages, which allowed me to come back to work periodically to ensure I was visible and that my work was not forgotten.
I took my first break a month before the baby was born. I returned the third month after giving birth and returned on leave in September, November, December and January.
It was designed based on who was there for help me with the child throughout the year: first my parents then my in-laws.
2. I highlighted my work
No one will talk about me until I do – this is something I’ve struggled with in my previous companies.
I made sure to talking when things weren’t going well and collect evidence of my efforts and achievements.
I took advantage of the help I had and spent evenings and weekends taking exams and obtaining certifications to better myself and show others that I was up to the task.
3. Had open and honest conversations
What helped me throughout the year was my manager. She saw what happened when I missed things, because I’ve been a good performer all these years.
I shared everything openly with her during one-on-ones, which helped because she understood my challenges. It also helped me maintain visibility with senior management.
It made all the difference to have a female manager and a work culture where men could also demonstrate empathy. My job involves a lot of talking and explaining, and I suffered from shortness of breath during my third trimester. My male counterparts recognized this and asked me to take breaks and get off cameras, which helped me work until the day I went on leave.
I also built my network and spoke to women who are managers in other teams in the company. Women who were top achievers shared their experiences crying secretly after becoming parents, and no one said they had it all sorted. Now I share my journey with others.
4. I took it one day at a time
During the wave of layoffs in the technology sector in 2022, I had at least three close friends who were laid off from Google, Microsoft, and Meta, which stuck with me and made me paranoid about my own situation.
The stress and postpartum depression are not behind me, but I have decided to take it one day at a time.
I decided to be laser focused and do things as they come up. There have been times when I have felt like delaying a response, but I do it anyway because I know it could lead to more tasks that I could add to my annual review.
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