Matan Gans sitting on a bench
Matan Gans says he's happy not taking a straightforward path in life.
  • Matan Gans is a former software development engineer at AWS. 
  • He's been a victim of Big Tech's sweeping layoffs since graduating college.
  • Coinbase rescinded an offer days after his graduation. Months later, Gans was laid off from Amazon.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Matan Gans, a former software development engineer at AWS and startup founder. It has been edited for length and clarity.

When I graduated from Brown University in 2022, I was weighing up two exciting job offers — one from Google and one from Coinbase.

Google was kind of a dream job for me, but the job was in-person and meant uprooting my life in Boston and moving to California.