[hux_]

Find People and teams you want to work with internally first and interview with them. What is happening in the news has nothing to do with developing your own skills. That fully depends on the people you surround yourself with. And if you haven't learnt how to find those people within a place like Google, it's not going to be easy to learn outside.

[SemiEarlyGoogle]

A fun, different, but effective way to find creative Googlers and Xooglers to chat with is at https://gxjam.com

GXJam prolly wasn't designed for that purpose in mind, but that's how I use it :)