Career regrets: 10 tech workers share what they wish they'd done differently

Aimen Moten (left) Nikhil Singh (center), and Abhinav Bohra (right) shared their biggest career regrets with Business Insider.

Aimen Moten (left) Nikhil Singh (center), and Abhinav Bohra (right) Tech workers shared their biggest career regrets with Business Insider.

Some wished they'd embraced AI sooner or explored different career paths.

Others regretted missed job opportunities or staying too long at one company.

Ask a tech worker about their biggest career regret , and they might have a hard time picking just one.

In a fast-changing, highly competitive industry , it's easy to second-guess career decisions — and wonder whether another path might have been the better one.

In interviews with Business Insider, tech professionals from companies including Amazon, Google, and Meta reflected on the career decisions they wish they'd handled differently.

Some regretted not leaning into AI sooner, while others mentioned turning down a job offer, staying too long at one company, or waiting too long to build a professional reputation in the broader tech industry.

Here's what 10 tech workers said they regret most. (Their responses have been edited for length and clarity.) I learned the hard way that loyalty wasn't a two-way street Mike Kostersitz says he wishes he'd left his longtime employer before he was laid off.

Mike Kostersitz Mike Kostersitz is a senior director, product management at Nike.

He worked at Microsoft for 31 years before being laid off last year.

He's in his early 60s and lives in Oregon.

My biggest career regret is not moving on more decisively before I got laid off.

I stayed loyal to a company that had been great to me since I started back in the '90s, even as the job market and the industry itself changed dramatically around me.