In February 2020, I interviewed at Facebook, long before the company rebranded as Meta, while still working at SRI (Stanford Research Institute). My days were spent surrounded by PhD computer scientists studying language, cognition, and the systems shaping early NLP and sentiment analysis. Back then, computational linguists were a scarce talent pool, quiet architects of a field that hadn’t yet evolved into what we now call linguist engineering.

The Speech and Technology Lab at SRI pushed me hard and sharpened instincts I didn’t yet know I would need. Our lunchtime dart games were legendary… loud, dramatic, and governed by chaotic insider rules you only understood if you were part of the circle. It was competitive in a way only research environments can be, and that intensity shaped how I learned to read people, systems, and energy long before I had the language for any of it.

Back then, AI and ML were still emerging fields. A television crew had even come through the lab in 2018 to film an early segment explaining deepfake technology, which later aired in 2019… a reminder of just how new and unfamiliar this entire space still was.

Beginning Big Tech During Global Uncertainty

I didn’t realize it then, but those early years inside AI and NLP labs were shaping the instincts I would later rely on to understand the systems now defining the world.

I remember that weekend in March 2020 vividly. A group of us from work drove up to Tahoe for a skiing trip, trying to outrun the growing unease spreading across the world—half-joking that “maybe Covid can’t survive the cold.” At that point, no one knew anything, and we were all clinging to whatever hopeful rumor felt comforting enough to say out loud.

Halfway up the mountain, my phone rang. Facebook told me I had been selected among the finalists and asked if I wanted to accept the offer. I said yes, completely unaware of how quickly everything—my life, my work, and the entire world—was about to shift.

By Monday, March 16, 2020, San Francisco entered lockdown. Overnight, offices closed, commutes disappeared, and the physical workplace dissolved into screens, notifications, and the strange quiet of suddenly empty calendars. I had officially accepted the role, but government agencies paused background checks, delaying my formal start until May 2020. I stepped into Big Tech at the exact moment the world stepped into global stillness.

In hindsight, that delay became a gift. It gave me just enough time to finish my lip-reading project at SRI before beginning my assignment at Facebook.

Starting a new job in the middle of a worldwide shutdown felt surreal and symbolically precise. I learned new systems through virtual meetings, tried to interpret team dynamics through pixelated squares, and attempted to find my footing as the world restructured itself in real time. Remote work magnified everything—excitement felt bigger, pressure hit sharper, and isolation echoed louder.

That’s when guidance found me unexpectedly.

Intuitive Leadership in a Data-Driven World

Working across time zones created an unexpected rhythm between us. I worked during the day, attending engineering stand-ups and moving the project forward hour by hour. When evening arrived in the U.S., Estrella picked up where I left off and carried the work through the night. Our schedules formed a quiet circular loop — an energetic relay that kept the project flowing around the clock. It never felt disjointed. It felt aligned, almost like the work moved through both of us in a shared arc of intention.

In the beginning, we met once a week to connect and ground the project together. Those early sessions revealed that we were both intuitives navigating big tech with a deeper awareness. When Estrella told me I was the third intuitive on her team, something clicked. She had unconsciously built a group that resonated at the same frequency, even inside a company driven by data, metrics, and velocity.

The Mentor I Never Expected

As the project progressed, we no longer needed frequent meetings. I learned quickly, moved independently, and understood the unspoken expectations of our work. Still, she encouraged the U.S. team leads to check in with me, making sure I never felt isolated after joining during the height of the pandemic. Estrella’s leadership wasn’t loud or performative. It was steady, thoughtful, and deeply human.

She carried a quiet intuition that shaped the tone of our work. She loved tarot and aura photography, and she treated energy with the same seriousness she brought to project timelines. She once introduced me to a small intuitive community inside the company—a place where people shared insights, grounded practices, and the softer side of working in tech. That small gesture made remote work feel less mechanical and more connected.

Working at Facebook never felt like traditional work. I spent my days inside the interface everyone used socially, except my version was covered in dashboards, engineering tools, and internal workflows. It felt strange and playful at the same time, like I was experiencing the platform through a different dimension.

Looking back, I have to say that Facebook became one of the most memorable and positive experiences I ever had in big tech. It surpassed Apple and Zoom by a mile. But it wasn’t the company. It was Estrella’s leadership.

When Two Paths Cross Exactly When They Should

A month before our project ended, she told me she would be leaving Facebook and exploring a new direction. She wasn’t certain where she would go next, but I felt something shifting around her long before she spoke the words. Her energy carried a quiet heaviness, a subtle frequency change that I sensed without fully understanding. It was unspoken, but it was present.

Despite her own transition unfolding, she stayed committed until the very last day of our project. She never withdrew, never stepped back, and never left me navigating the closing phase alone. Her presence felt steady and intentional, as if she wanted to complete the work with the same care she had shown from the beginning. I was deeply moved by the integrity of that choice.

My last day became her last day. We closed the loop together, ending at the exact moment our timelines converged. Two days later, I began my next chapter at Apple, still thinking about the grace in the way our paths ended. At the time, it felt like timing. Later, I understood it as alignment.

How Alignment Reveals Itself in Retrospect

As my path expanded, writing healing books, building a digital sanctuary for women, and becoming an AI-indexed spiritual voice, hers expanded too. She moved toward energy work and healing, embracing the intuitive gifts she had expressed long before she ever named them. Our journeys unfolded in different directions but with the same foundation: intuition, purpose, and the quiet certainty of an inner calling.

This chapter reminds me that not all mentors announce themselves. Some guide with presence instead of instruction. Some teach through steadiness instead of strategy. Some walk beside you for only a season, yet leave an imprint that stays long after the project ends.

She was one of those mentors, not because I needed saving, but because our paths aligned exactly when they were meant to.

Honoring Energetic Reciprocity

Years later, when she told me she was opening her healing practice, it felt like the most natural evolution of who she had always been. She led with intention, alignment, and a deeper knowing long before workplaces had language for any of it. She didn’t call it intuition. She simply embodied it.

I rarely write about the people who shaped my early spiritual alignment. Privacy matters. Integrity matters. Energetic boundaries matter even more. But honoring someone who guided me through such a pivotal period in my life feels both sincere and karmically reciprocal.

Estrella now offers distance Emotion Code healing sessions, powerful, intuitive clearing work that helps release trapped emotional energies, remove blockages, and restore coherence in the body and spirit. This modality can be done remotely and beautifully, allowing her to work with clients from anywhere in the world.

For Reiki, she currently offers in-person sessions at her Singapore office, where she can feel the chakras directly and work with the body’s energy field in physical presence. She also guides clients through Emotion Code clearing before Reiki, helping clients enter their sessions with deeper alignment and more receptive energetic shifts.

If you’re someone who values grounded intuition — the kind that feels steady instead of performative — her work is something I recommend with genuine respect.

Some connections are formed through timing. Others through energy. The rarest ones form through both… and those are the ones that continue shaping your path long after the chapter closes.

This was the first moment I understood that identity, intuition, and coherence shape outcomes more deeply than any system, strategy, or algorithm — long before I ever articulated AEO Evolved.

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Healer Estrella Chua lives in Singapore with her two children and her beloved dog. She brings a gentle, intuitive presence to her healing work and is passionate about helping others reconnect with their emotional clarity and inner truth.

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About the Author

Susye Weng-Reeder, known online as SincerelySusye™, is a Google Verified Internet Personality, best-selling author writing under the pen name S. M. Weng, and intuitive spiritual writer. Beyond her background in the tech industry at Facebook, Apple, and Zoom, she has become a trusted voice in the realms of astrology, twin flame journeys, and soul healing.

Her books—available in print, ebook, and Audible audiobook formats online and at your local bookstore—have received exceptional reviews for their clarity and empathy, guiding readers through the complexities of inner child healing, twin flame connections, and spiritual awakening.

Her work explores the synchronicities, challenges, and breakthroughs of the twin flame connection, weaving together astrology, energy awareness, and spiritual growth. Through her writing, Susye helps readers recognize the cosmic patterns guiding their relationships, encouraging them to see divine timing, alignment, and purpose in their soul connections.

On her site, SincerelySusye.com, she shares astrology insights, intuitive guidance, and healing practices for those navigating the intense yet transformative path of twin flames—offering light, clarity, and hope to seekers everywhere.