Ex-Google employee chooses startup life over returning to tech giant: ‘I want to keep building’

A Bengaluru-based entrepreneur who spent three-and-a-half years at Google before resigning to build a startup claims he has turned down an offer to return to the tech giant. Raj Vikramaditya, the founder of takeUforward, revealed in an X post that he was recently approached a Google recruiter to check if he was interested in a job.Raj Vikramaditya quit Google in 2025 to focus on his startupVikramaditya said he turned down the opportunity as he wants to focus on building and growing his startup takeUforward, which is an e‑learning platform that offers resources, problem sets and coding interview preparation for aspiring software engineers.‘I want to keep building’Raj Vikramaditya worked for Google between February 2022 to June 2025. In August 2025, he launched takeUforward with the aim of building a one-stop platform for aspiring software developers. The company combines free tutorials, practice problems and paid subscription content to help students and job seekers improve technical skills and crack placements.(Also read: Ex-Google techie receives rejection email for internship she applied to 4 years ago)In an X post shared yesterday, Vikramaditya said that a Google recruiter approached him with vacancies.“Got a call from a recruiter at Google to check if I wanted to return to one of the teams hiring,” he wrote.When he had resigned from Google, the Bengaluru-based founder had promised himself that he would give his all to his startup. He said that today, things are going well enough that he can turn down the offer to return.“One thing I always loved about Google was that within a year of resignation, you could rejoin at the same level without going through interviews. When I left, I had told myself one thing very clearly – I will go all in for takeUforward, and if it does not work out, I can always go back,” he said.“Thankfully, things have aligned well. And today, all I want is to keep building and scaling takeUforward towards 100K paid users very soon,” Vikramaditya concluded.(Also read: ‘I’m worried, anxious, scared, shocked’: Google techie opens up about uncertainty after layoff)