Hong Wi

I joined Google in 2022 and spent three and a half years on a team that was stable, comfortable, and fine. My partner is working at Amazon's Seattle office, we were settled in, and everything made sense on paper.

But I was coasting. The team was internal-facing infra with little room to grow or learn. I was so close to quitting Google altogether and going the startup route. I wanted the chaos, the growth, the feeling of building something that actually mattered to me.

Then I found Google Flow.

Flow is part of Google Labs, where products get built fast, shipped fast, and sometimes killed fast. Joining a Labs team is a real gamble. Your product can get shut down in months, and you're left scrambling. But the upside (the learning, the ownership, the raw pace of building) was everything I'd been craving.

One problem: Flow is based in the Bay Area. The obvious answer is we both move to the Bay, but she's killing it on her team in Seattle. And moving teams at Amazon in this climate is the last thing you want to do, especially with all the layoffs (at the time of writing this, Feb 2026).

I needed a way to chase my own growth, support her career, and keep our relationship together, all at once. So I made a decision that doesn't make sense on paper: I fly from Seattle to the Bay every week. Two homes. Two states. California taxes on top of it all. The financial sacrifice is real, but what I'm getting out of this is worth far more than what it costs.

I often get asked why. Here's the framework I live by: will I regret not going for it at 80?

If I had stayed on my old team, I would have been comfortable. Good work-life balance. Financially stable (and not paying CA taxes 💸). But I would have spent years wondering what could have been. That thought scared me more than any weekly flight, more than the thousands burned on commuting, more than the exhaustion.

In the six months since joining Flow, I've learned more than I did in three and a half years on my previous team. Responsibility, communication, exposure to real product dynamics. Everything leveled up. Flow has since grown into one of the most successful products to come out of Labs, and the fact that I've contributed to that growth makes me genuinely proud. My gamble worked out.

I believe this chapter is making me a better engineer, a better version of myself, and preparing me for entrepreneurship. That's my ultimate goal. This commute, this chapter. It's not the destination. It's the foundation.

2025 has been the most transformative year of my life. Let's see what 2026 looks like.