Laid off from AWS, Charles lands Google in 90 days

referrals helped – Charles Broomfield says he treated his job search like a job after being laid off from Amazon Web Services in late January. He applied strategically, leaned heavily on referrals, and landed a Google offer in April—after a process he says began with structure o

When Charles Broomfield walked into the period after his layoff from Amazon Web Services. he didn’t picture a long stall.. He pictured time running out—and, with it, the kind of uncertainty that can drain focus.. So he built a schedule. set boundaries around which roles he’d pursue. and turned every opening into a deliberate step.

Broomfield. a 25-year-old engineering analyst at Google in Washington. D.C.. said his path into the job at all started with a sudden hard stop.. He worked at a government research company after graduating from Knox College, a small liberal arts school.. He later joined Amazon Web Services in the summer of 2025.. In late January, he was laid off.

By April, he accepted an offer for a job at Google.

The months between those two dates became his test: how quickly could he move, and how much could he control what came next?

He treated the hunt like work, not an interruption

Broomfield said he grew increasingly nervous about where his team stood relative to Amazon’s broader direction. He pointed to comments by Andy Jassy about Amazon having fewer people in the future because of AI.

He began applying on January 24, but the timeline tightened almost immediately. He received notice of his layoff a few days later. Even as he felt he was likely to be affected, he said he didn’t want to leave before reaching 90 days’ notice and severance.

Once the layoff came, he described the psychological shift as difficult—moving from AWS, where he says culture is more widely recognized, to “a complete hard stop.” That contrast, he said, pushed him to keep his energy pointed in a productive direction.

He said the practical effect was small but real: he got an extra hour or so of sleep.. But he tried to keep a sense of structure.. In his description of the routine. the first half of his day focused on outreach—reaching out to people and finding positions.. He said he wasn’t going through every job posting and hitting apply indiscriminately.. He avoided interviews for roles he wasn’t genuinely excited about, and he described himself as picky.

Applications, he said, were brutal. Doing eight straight hours of them “is pretty brutal,” so he would break the day with working out or cooking in the middle. In the evening, he spent another three- or four-hour stretch tailoring applications.

That kind of discipline mattered to him because it was measurable. It turned a stressful turn in his career into a process he could execute.

Referrals did more than job boards

After being laid off from AWS, Broomfield said he applied to 42 positions. He said 26 of those applications had referrals, and he interviewed for six of those jobs.

The most influential moment, he said, came from a previous colleague who encouraged him to apply to Google. He applied to three positions and was quickly rejected from the two he thought he was most likely to land.

The third position moved forward.. Broomfield said that about a week after he applied, the recruiter for that role reached out.. The next week, he passed the technical screen.. Over the following two weeks. he said he completed three interviews and received an offer a few days after his final interview.

Broomfield also argued that people often misunderstand what referrals really mean.. He said he did LinkedIn outreach, but described it as ineffective.. He said he always started with his warmest audience—beginning with friends and then expanding outward.. Even for connections from a tiny college network. he said he didn’t dismiss them; Knox’s smaller alumni base meant more people who might be willing to help.

He said companies where he’d worked through major layoffs also mattered indirectly. “A lot of people I worked with ended up at big companies,” he said, and that helped generate referrals.

In his view, a network isn’t only the people you talk to every day.. He said it can include anyone he has met and made a positive impression with.. He described keeping a list of people he reaches out to whenever he has a major career update. while also saying that many other connections stay warm only through social media.. He added that leaving a friendly or supportive comment can go further than people realize.. He said some of the best connections are friends of friends or random acquaintances—often not close friends or family.

Behind the job search, a second form of insurance

If Broomfield’s job hunt was about control and momentum, he said the larger emotional foundation came from how he handled money.

He described himself as “super passionate about early retirement, frugality, and building financial freedom.” He said he has been saving everything he can since college.

He linked that discipline to the turbulence of the last year. saying it made him feel “grateful” for the peace of mind and flexibility his savings provided.. He said he felt for people who were counting on their next few paychecks and for people whose visas are tied to their work.. In that kind of situation. he said. it’s harder to operate when you’re stressed—and desperation. he said. “doesn’t help.”

His savings buffer, he concluded, made him more relaxed during the transition.

His takeaway is blunt: start building before you need it

Broomfield said the lesson from his experience is that networks are more powerful than job boards. But he didn’t frame it as a motivational slogan. He suggested people build their networks now rather than wait until they need help.

For Broomfield. the arc of that advice is already embedded in his timeline: job notice in late January. steady applications and referral-heavy interviewing. a technical screen followed by three interviews. and then an offer he accepted in April—after a layoff that forced him to decide whether to freeze. or to move.

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