Is it okay to remove a level of a skill given for free by your Career to give you XP to apply to a different skill? This is at character creation time. For instance, one of my players is a droid Smuggler Pilot and wants to move the Skullduggery to a different skill that makes more sense for his character. I said it was okay, but I wanted to know if there's a ruling on this.

You can only take half the skills of your career at creatoon. He can choose freely among them.

If the career doesn't offer the skills hr wants to play, he should choose a different one!

Remember, you don't have to pick smuggler career to be a Smuggler by profession. It's just a name, doesn't restrict your character in any way.

There is a difference between trading off the free ranks (of which droids get more than the usual allotment) and removing skills from the Career Skills list (meaning they will cost extra when/if you do decide to take ranks in them). Dropping starting skill ranks might be worth +5XP per rank given up if the GM doesn't want to make the option overly attractive (you get the XP to spend where you want, but it's objectively less XP than what you're giving up in exchange). The latter option I do not recommend as it can seriously lead to min-max and really wrecks the idea of Career Skill sets.