She left Google for watercolor—then built a studio

left Google – After six years at Google, Sara Wilczynska stepped away from software engineering, spent a year traveling with her partner, and found watercolors in Thailand—turning that pull into Swil Arts in San Diego.

When Sara Wilczynska quit her job at the end of 2022, it wasn’t just a career change—it was a leap into uncertainty she’d been trying to outthink for years.

She had been at Google long enough to earn promotions twice and move deeper into high-level work. but the day-to-day no longer felt like it fit. Screens, deadlines, notifications, and stakeholder meetings had started to pull her away from herself. She would later call it a growing sense that the pace wasn’t sustainable.

Wilczynska’s path before Google was shaped by computers and ambition. Born in Warsaw in the 1980s, when Poland was still a communist country, she remembers witnessing the shift into capitalism. She earned a master’s degree in computer science from the University of Warsaw. interning in Barcelona and studying abroad in Edinburgh along the way.

At 25, she moved to London to work as a software engineer at an investment bank, staying nearly five years. Even then, she says a “quiet voice” kept asking whether that was really what she wanted.

She started at Google in 2015. She joined Google in Zurich, describing it as “a step closer to something more meaningful.” After about a year and a half, she got her US visa and was transferred to New York, where she worked on the news section of the search engine.

On paper, the job checked every box. Google was flexible and supportive. She had autonomy over her projects and even her physical working location. Her days included coding and meetings, but also yoga classes, gym sessions, gourmet birthday meals, and subsidized massages. There was stability too: a good paycheck and stock grant options.

That is also what made leaving hard.

Later at Google, as her career progressed, the work changed. She did more high-level work and less hands-on coding, and she spent more time in stakeholder meetings. The pace—fast, constant, and demanding—began to feel like it was pulling her off balance. She remembers questioning herself: “Am I just being too picky?. Am I asking for too much?” Because nothing about the job was objectively wrong. It wasn’t toxic. She respected her colleagues.

In the pandemic, that internal friction became impossible to ignore. Six years after joining Google, she moved to San Diego with her partner, Valentina. Living near the ocean and surrounded by nature—the desert and the mountains too—forced her to slow down. She started noticing small things again: the scent of jasmine on a warm evening. and the simple joy of eating a fish taco.

What she described as misalignment in her work had been there all along. First, she tried to fix it from within. She trained in sound healing and hosted sessions. She took on different projects at Google, including leading diversity and inclusion initiatives. She reduced her working hours.

None of it fully addressed the core feeling. She kept returning to the same realization: a job can tick every box, look perfect on paper, and still be missing something deeper.

Leaving also raised a practical fear—what would come next. One of the biggest challenges was not knowing what would come after the decision, and feeling she needed a plan, a clear logical step.

But she eventually realized that waiting for certainty would keep her stuck.

So she and Valentina made a decision that felt radical at the time. She quit her job at the end of 2022. Valentina’s job had been eliminated the previous year. The couple rented out their apartment in San Diego and chose to travel for a year.

Most of 2023 was spent in Southeast Asia, with shorter trips to Australia and New Zealand. At first, they moved quickly, then slowed down. They spent six months in Koh Tao, a small island in Thailand.

On the island, life felt simple. Valentina worked as a dive master, and Wilczynska found something she hadn’t experienced in years: unstructured time.

That unstructured time became the opening watercolors needed. She had no formal training. She says she simply felt drawn to it. She started taking online classes and sketching scenes from the island—fruit stands, village views, and little everyday moments.

She shared her work in local Facebook community groups in Koh Tao. She didn’t expect much, but people began reaching out—not only to compliment the pieces, but to buy them. They told her, “This captures my memory of this place perfectly.”

When their year of travel ended, she decided to commit to art. Not because she had everything figured out, but because she didn’t want to ignore that pull anymore.

To keep costs down while building toward a new life, she extended the flexible lifestyle that had carried her through the trip. She did house-sitting across the US and, in San Diego, started building her studio, Swil Arts, from the ground up.

Today, that’s where she creates original watercolor illustrations, then reproduces them as illustrated goods, including prints and homeware.

Her days are shaped differently now. Mornings belong to painting. Afternoons are for the business side: handling client communications, website content, and business strategy. Her income comes through direct-to-consumer retail, wholesale partnerships with boutiques, and custom art commissions for both individuals and brands.

Although it is not at the same level as her previous income. she describes Swil Arts as still young and still building. Success now is measured differently. It’s not about productivity or output; it’s about impact. If one person pauses because of her work—if they feel something or remember something—that is enough.

And the story, told end to end, carries a clear tension: she left a career designed for structure and certainty, only to build something quieter—first on a Thai island, then back in San Diego—using the same discipline she once applied to code, redirected toward art.

Google Sara Wilczynska Swil Arts watercolor Koh Tao entrepreneurship San Diego direct-to-consumer wholesale partnerships art commissions