This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Ganesh Karthik Sankar, a 29-year-old UX designer at Google who previously worked at Amazon as a product designer. He lives in Seattle. The following has been edited for length and clarity. During my last job search, I had the opportunity to interview with all five MAANG companies — Meta, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Google. By April 2025, I'd accepted an offer from Amazon and moved to Seattle. I was genuinely excited about the role —