How I balance life as a Googler and a military spouse

I grew up next to Travis Air Force Base in Northern California, where my dad served for 35 years, primarily in the Air Force Reserve. While we didn’t have to move or deal with long deployments, the majority of my classmates did. All I saw was the strain that military life put on families — and if I had any say in it, I didn’t want that life.

After my first date with my now-husband, I remember thinking, “Air Force pilot… that’s not ideal.” And it wasn’t! Four years of a long distance relationship, two deployments and my husband’s impending next assignment weighed heavily on our daily life. I was proud of my work at Google in Austin, Texas, and when we got married I was determined to find a way that I could prioritize both my marriage and my career.

The entire year before we received our move orders, I was filled with an insecurity many military partners are familiar with: the expectation that a civilian employer wouldn’t want to invest in the partner’s career if they were likely to move in a short time. Thankfully in my case, this expectation was unfounded at Google.

Only one Air Force base on our list was remotely close to a Google office, and that was in Tokyo. While the odds of receiving our top choice were slim, I started looking on our internal job boards and networking with Googlers who had any ties to the Tokyo office well before we actually received our assignment to Yokota Air Base.

We were fortunate to have a six-month notice and my managers were very supportive. They initiated conversations and introduced me to managers in the Asia Pacific region. I had quite a few late-night video calls with leads, recruiters and mobility specialists, and complex processes to navigate, but on February 14, 2020, my husband and I landed in Japan.

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