2021

Welcome to the latest edition of “My Path to Google,” where we talk to Googlers, interns and alumni about how they got to Google, what their roles are like and even some tips on how to prepare for interviews.

This week we spoke with Andrew Kamau, a Noogler — new Googler — who recently joined as a Product Manager in Nairobi. Learn how Andrew’s career took him from startups in Kenya to creating products at Google.

What do you do at Google?

I’m a product manager working on the Privacy team for Chrome Browser. Product management typically involves wearing multiple hats, but I can summarize it as supporting my team in ensuring that we are delivering product features that help our users stay and feel safe while using Chrome to access the web.

I work closely with a team of engineers, designers, product managers and other cross-functional roles to anticipate our users’ needs such as easy-to-use privacy controls and protection from online threats. We then design product strategy that meets those needs. This usually involves weaving together inputs from our users and colleagues across different teams and then making product decisions that align with the company’s mission.

How would you describe your path to Google?

I’ve had a somewhat unusual path compared to most folks in my position. My career background is largely in tech startups. I live in Nairobi, which has a thriving community of creative talent from which I’ve benefited from and to which I’ve contributed. My time as an entrepreneur working on financial technology exposed me to opportunities that helped diversify my experiences and build up the empathy and skill set that is extremely invaluable as a product manager.

Coming from a startup background, I was — on one hand — nervous about moving to a global corporation. I worried that I might not fit into the culture, having not worked at any organization with more than 40 people in the entirety of my career before this. On the other hand, the interesting thing about working at Google is that I’m still able to channel my scrappy, entrepreneurial approach to experimenting and building products. The difference is that I now have access to world-class technology and talent to support me every step of the way and the impact of my work has increased exponentially.

What’s the one thing that surprised you about the interview process?

Considering that I went through the entire process in the midst of the pandemic and working from home, I was pleased to find that everyone involved was gracious enough to accommodate my preferences, so I didn’t have to worry about awkward situations like my son barging in on our video calls.

I did have some preconceived notions about what the recruiting process would look like. One that took me by surprise was how helpful and supportive my recruiter was. She helped make the process less jarring and more rewarding; even going so far as to set up calls with product managers and engineers who work at roles similar to the one I was interviewing for. They voluntarily provided guidance and advice, which helped me be better prepared for the technical interviews.

What gets you most excited in your role?

Chrome is used on over three billion devices across the world to access the web. Building and maintaining safe and reliable product experiences for our users at this scale is a huge responsibility and source of motivation for me. I enjoy working on technical solutions to advance our mission and deliver value to our users. I’m particularly fortunate to work with incredibly smart engineers and designers on our teams.

In my role, every day is different. Some days are spent largely on meetings, chat and email with my colleagues brainstorming and planning, while others are heads-down working on synthesizing feedback from users and developing product requirements. 

I regularly carve out time on my weekly calendar for virtual coffees and lunches where I get to meet folks in the company based in Munich, London, Dublin, and other locations globally. Due to the diversity of backgrounds and experiences in the company, there’s always something fun and interesting to learn from others.

Any tips for aspiring Googlers in Africa?

First and foremost, focus on being great at your craft while maintaining a low ego. I strongly believe that confidence, ambition and humility can co-exist.

Having mostly worked in the African tech industry, I’m constantly blown away by the talent and creativity that I encounter. I’d encourage anyone who aspires to make the jump not to doubt themselves and apply. You don’t need to know anybody (I didn’t!) or pull any strings.

It’s also important to take time to find a role and team that is an ideal match. For example, I had to delay my process for a few months until I found the role and team that best matched my interests. Eventually, I ended up interviewing for a different role from the one I was invited to apply for — and it worked out great.

Ketty Lie remembers her college graduation like it was yesterday. Her mother held her hand tightly as they walked across the lawn to the ceremony and told her how proud she was that Ketty had achieved the dream she never got to fulfill herself.

That investment in education led Ketty to become an entrepreneur. Today, her company ErudiFi is focused on expanding access to education for young people across Southeast Asia. And Ketty is getting ready to start the twelve-week Women Founders Academy with Google for Startups.

We welcomed the opportunity to participate in President Biden’s White House Cyber Security Meeting today, and appreciated the chance to share our recommendations to advance this important agenda. The meeting comes at a timely moment, as widespread cyberattacks continue to exploit vulnerabilities targeting people, organizations, and governments around the world.

That’s why today, we are announcing that we will invest $10 billion over the next five years to strengthen cybersecurity, including expanding zero-trust programs, helping secure the software supply chain, and enhancing open-source security. We are also pledging, through the Google Career Certificate program, to train 100,000 Americans in fields like IT Support and Data Analytics, learning in-demand skills including data privacy and security. 

Governments and businesses are at a watershed moment in addressing cybersecurity. Cyber attacks are increasingly endangering valuable data and critical infrastructure. While we welcome increased measures to reinforce cybersecurity, governments and companies are both facing key challenges: 

First, organizations continue to depend on vulnerable legacy infrastructure and software, rather than adopting modern IT and security practices. Too many governments still rely on legacy vendor contracts that limit competition and choice, inflate costs, and create privacy and security risks. 

Second, nation-state actors, cybercriminals and other malicious actors continue to target weaknesses in software supply chains and many vendors don’t have the tools or expertise to stop them. 

Third, countries simply don’t have enough people trained to anticipate and deal with these threats. 

For the past two decades, Google has made security the cornerstone of our product strategy. We don’t just plug security holes, we work to eliminate entire classes of threats for consumers and businesses whose work depends on our services. We keep more users safe than anyone else in the world — blocking malware, phishing attempts, spam messages, and potential cyber attacks. We’ve published over 160 academic research papers on computer security, privacy, and abuse prevention, and we warn other software companies of weaknesses in their systems. And dedicated teams like our Threat Analysis Group work to counter government-backed hacking and attacks against Google and our users, making the internet safer for everyone.

Extending the zero-trust security model 

We’re one of the pioneers inzero-trust computing, in which no person, device, or network enjoys inherent trust.  Trust that allows access to information must be earned.  We’ve learned a lot about both the power and the challenges of running this model at scale. 

Implemented properly, zero-trust computing provides the highest level of security for organizations.  We support the White House effort to deploy this model across the federal government. 

As government and industry work together to develop and implement zero-trust solutions for employee access to corporate assets, we also need to apply the approach to production environments. This is necessary to address events like Solarwinds, where attackers used access to the production environment to compromise dozens of outside entities. The U.S. government can encourage adoption by expanding zero-trust guidelines and reference architecture language in the Executive Order implementation process to include production environments, which in addition to application segmentation substantially improves an organization’s defense in depth strategy. 

Securing the software supply chain 

Following the Solarwinds attack, the software world gained a deeper understanding of the real risks and ramifications of supply chain attacks. Today, the vast majority of modern software development makes use of open source software, including software incorporated in many aspects of critical infrastructure and national security systems. Despite this, there is no formal requirement or standard for maintaining the security of that software. Most of the work that is done to enhance the security of open source software, including fixing known vulnerabilities, is done on an ad hoc basis. 

That’s why we worked with the Open Source Security Foundation (OpenSSF) to develop and release Supply Chain Levels for Software Artifacts (SLSA or “salsa”), a proven framework for securing the software supply chain. In our view, wide support for and adoption of the SLSA framework will raise the security bar for the entire software ecosystem. 

To further advance our work and the broader community’s work in this space, we committed to invest in the expansion of the application of our SLSA framework to protect the key components of open-source software widely used by many organizations. We also pledged to provide $100 million to support third-party foundations, like OpenSSF, that manage open source security priorities and help fix vulnerabilities.

Strengthening the digital security skills of the American workforce

Robust cybersecurity ultimately depends on having the people to implement it. That includes people with digital skills capable of designing and executing cybersecurity solutions, as well as promoting awareness of cybersecurity risks and protocols among the broader population. In short, we need more and better computer security education and training.  

Over the next three years, we’re pledging to help 100,000 Americans earn Google Career Certificates in fields like IT Support and Data Analytics to learn in-demand skills including data privacy and security. The certificates are industry-recognized and supported credentials that equip Americans with the skills they need to get high-paying, high-growth jobs. To date, more than half of our graduates have come from backgrounds underserved in tech (Black, Latinx, veteran, or female). 46% of our graduates come from the lowest income tertile in the country. And the results are strong: 82% of our graduates report a positive career impact within six months of graduation. Additionally, we will train over 10 million Americans in digital skills from basic to advanced by 2023.

Leading the world in cybersecurity is critical to our national security. Today’s meeting at the White House was both an acknowledgment of the threats we face and a call to action to address them. It emphasized cybersecurity as a global imperative and encouraged new ways of thinking and partnering across government, industry and academia. We look forward to working with the Administration and others to define and drive a new era in cybersecurity. Our collective safety, economic growth, and future innovation depend on it.

On the 10th anniversary of Google’s presence in Colombia, we’re investing in the future of news in the country with the launch of Google News Showcase, our new product experience and licensing program for news. Colombia is now the third country in Latin America, alongside Argentina and Brazil, to provide News Showcase for readers.

Nearly 1,000 news publications globally have signed deals for News Showcase since last year. These span more than a dozen countries, including India, Germany, Brazil, Canada, France, Italy, Australia, Czechia, Japan, the U.K, Austria and Argentina, with discussions underway in a number of other countries. Over 90% of the publications signed up around the world represent local, regional or community news.  

When Google came to Colombia a decade ago, the tech industry was facing an important moment of evolution in the country. Internet access and mobile penetration were increasing exponentially, marking a tipping point for Colombians. We’ve been a part of that growth ever since by partnering with the news industry, the government, industry associations, advertisers and users. With News Showcase launching in Colombia today, we’re looking forward to continuing to collaborate with the news industry over the next 10 years and more.   

News Showcase is backed by our recent $1 billion global investment in news. The primary goal of News Showcase is to support news publishers that are invested in comprehensive current events journalism in the public interest by giving them a new way to curate their high-quality content on Google’s News and Discover platforms. Through News Showcase, these publishers can help connect their readers with the news that matters to them. As part of our licensing deals with publishers, we’re also launching the ability for readers to access select paywall content. This feature will give people the opportunity to read more of a publisher’s content than they would otherwise have access to, while enabling publishers to incentivize more readers to become subscribers. 

Today’s News Showcase announcement includes 24 regional and national news publications well known to the people of Colombia: BLU Radio, Caracol Radio,El Colombiano, El Diario,, El Espectador, El Heraldo, El Nuevo Día, El Nuevo Siglo, El País, El Pilón, El Universal, Hoy Diario del Magdalena, La Crónica del Quindío, La Opinión, La Patria, Noticias Caracol, Publimetro, Q’Hubo Bogotá, Q’Hubo Bucaramanga, QHubo Cali, QHubo Medellín, Semana, Vanguardia and W Radio. Over the coming months we plan to add more publications. 

News Showcase panels display an enhanced view of an article or articles, giving participating publishers in Colombia more ways to bring important news to readers and explain it in their own voice, along with more direct control of presentation and their branding. Readers who click on a News Showcase panel are directed to the full articles on the publisher’s website. This drives valuable traffic to news organizations and enables them to grow their businesses and their audience while deepening relationships with readers.

Starting today, News Showcase panels from our participating publishers in Colombia will automatically start to appear in Google News and on Discover. Readers will see panels from publishers they follow in their personalized feeds, and they might also find panels from publishers they’re less familiar with presented as suggestions in the Google News “For You” feed and inside “Newsstand,” the discovery area of Google News.

More support for the Colombian news industry

News Showcase is part of a broader set of Google’s efforts to help the news industry in Colombia thrive and builds on the work we have been doing with the Google News Initiative (GNI) through training, scholarships and funding. Some examples include digital skills training with publishers like El Tiempo, and a program with AMI, an association that represents Colombian news organizations, to promote responsible, objective and independent journalism. We’ve provided support for Colombian news organizations to accelerate the growth of their businesses online through the Digital Growth Program, as well as Labs like the 2020 LATAM Contributions Lab that included 5 Colombian publishers.

We all know the importance of trustworthy journalism in helping us make informed decisions that affect our lives, work and family.  That’s why we have collaborated closely with a number of fact check organizations in Colombia. For example, since 2019, we’ve provided support for workshops and training on fact checking tools with RedCheq, a network of fact checkers.  And we’ve worked on initiatives to promote the use of digital tools to combat misinformation, such as Verificracks. 

Additionally we’ve partnered with journalism organizations such as Fundación Gabo to support innovation in newsrooms and their diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. Covid-19 hit all sectors of society hard, including newsrooms.  We responded by funding 83 small and medium local newsrooms across Colombia in 2020 through our Journalism Emergency Relief Fund. And in the last year alone we have trained +1800 journalists with our News Lab programs. 

Over the coming months we’ll continue to work with our news partners in Colombia to incorporate their feedback as we build new features for News Showcase and include more publishers in the program for the future.

Enabling a robust and healthy landscape for news should be a shared responsibility across industries, governments and private and public interest groups.  News Showcase along with our other News products and GNI programs are a clear demonstration of Google’s commitment to support quality journalism for the people of Colombia for the next decade and beyond.