Matt Cutts, who used to lead search quality at Google, announced that he has officially resigned from Google as of December 31, 2016. Instead, Cutts has chosen to stay on with the US Digital Service and has been appointed the director of engineering for that governmental department.
It was back in 2014 when Matt Cuts first went on leave at Google, but then decided to extend his leave shortly after. It was in May of 2015 when he was replaced in his job by another Googler. It was confirmed that he was still on leave with Google.
It was in mid-2016 when he began to work with the US Digital Service team. After working there a while, he found that he enjoyed it enough to make it official. He now, officially, no longer on leave with Google.
Matt wrote:
Working for the government doesn’t pay as well as a big company in Silicon Valley. We don’t get any free lunches. Many days are incredibly frustrating. All I can tell you is that the work is deeply important and inspiring, and you have a chance to work on things that genuinely make peoples’ lives better. A friend who started working in this space several years ago told me “These last five years have been the hardest and worst and best and most rewarding I think I will ever have.
Matt shared this video to explain why he finds what the USDS does to e so important: