
What’s it like working at a large tech company? - johnjungles
I’ve been working at startups or building my own startups and I’m just trying to get a realistic picture of if the grass is really greener. Is job security at a larger company real? What’s the pace like, I understand it depends on the team, but is it long hours and as crazy as a startup? Is there really that big of a salary difference (funded startups these days have pretty competitive offers). Is there really a lot of process that get in your way? Are your peers generally competitive or supportive? Thank you HN community for your thoughts and experiences
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senordevnyc
I can't speak to the actual work yet as I haven't started, but I just accepted
an offer as a senior / staff level engineer at one of the smaller public tech
companies (think Dropbox, Lyft, Pinterest, Snap, etc) after 10+ years of being
self-employed. I had two startups offer me $170k plus some (probably
worthless) options. When the offer I ultimately accepted came in, I had
several more startup interviews lined up and likely could have gotten closer
to $180k - 200k from the startups.

Now, $200k isn't bad. But the offer I accepted from the public tech company is
for $420k the first year, and will likely go up from there, especially if the
stock does well. It's not crazy to think I could be making $600k - 800k within
a few years. And to be honest, I think it's on the low end for the big tech
companies at my level. And it doesn't come with some crazy grind as far as I
can tell. People seem to _actually_ work 40 hours, the PTO policy is flexible
and people take 20-25 days a year off, people work from home when they need
to, the benefits are solid, etc.

After this experience and seeing the huge disparity in pay, I would _never_ go
work at some random startup unless I was founder level or deeply, deeply
believed in their mission.

Check out [https://levels.fyi](https://levels.fyi) ...from everything I've
seen, it's pretty accurate. The numbers there for my company and level were
almost $70k _lower_ than what I ultimately accepted.

~~~
rayhendricks
That is a lot of money.

But it is not unreasonable, as you have to think of how much the large
publicly traded tech companies pay for talent which is in the same level as a
startup founder.

Also that work life balance seems decent. Are you worried that you will find
enough of a challenge at the position?

~~~
senordevnyc
I'm not really worried. I'm both bored with self-employment and a little
burned out. I think this will be a different kind of challenge but I also want
a bit of a rest tbh. I'm also interested in transitioning to engineering
management, which would be a whole new world for me.

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username90
> Is job security at a larger company real?

It varies greatly from company to company. At Google (where I work) yes. At
Facebook no.

> What’s the pace like

I often work less than 40 hours a week and nobody even mentions it, but if I
work more they tell me to work less.

> Is there really a lot of process that get in your way?

This depends entirely on what you want to do. Do you want to redesign GMail?
Do you want to rewrite the codebase in Haskell? Do you want to move your data
storage to mongo db? Then yes, there will be a lot of process in your way.
Risky things like user facing changes and introducing new unsanctioned
technologies will force you to go through a lot of bureaucracy.

But on the other hand if you just want to build and improve infrastructure
using company sanctioned tools then there isn't that much process at all, just
get a code reviewer and you are done. I haven't been blocked by process for
years, I just decide I want to implement a feature, I write the code and send
it and the feature is in an hour later.

> Are your peers generally competitive or supportive?

Peers evaluate each other so you don't see much toxic competition. However
most of your peers will be relatively ambitious people so they will strive to
look better than you, so you could say that they are competitive even though
in this competition supporting peers looks good.

~~~
johnjungles
Thanks for a real insight into this, this all sounds wonderful and all, can I
ask what you would honestly miss if you were working at a smaller company or a
high growth startup?

Why are there people working at large tech companies looking to leave their
positions? Is it because it’s so boring? Is it because they’re not getting
promoted fast enough? Do they not like the people they’re working with? Can
you transfer to another team easily?

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adreamingsoul
Is the grass greener? Yes and no.

Startups and big tech are two very different environments. The environment
that is best for you depends on many things. Suffice to say, it’s best to
understand your goals and motivations for the next 5 to 10 years.

You can learn a lot at either big tech or a startip if you surround yourself
with the right people. Big tech has more people, which means your chances of
finding excellent mentors is higher, but the risk of having toxic people
around you is also high.

Compensation is usually good at big tech, after the stock vesting starts to
kick in ( Which can take a couple years). If you look at the base salary that
isn’t stock based, then it’s not that different from a startup. However, this
is also something that is highly depemdemt on what you are doing and who you
are working for.

Is the grass greener? I think we are biased humans who are always looking for
something better. It’s human nature. So yes, the grass is probably greener on
the other side. But how’s the grass where you are currently standing?

~~~
johnjungles
Thanks for this, I think I have to do a bit of soul searching and figure out
what I want to do for the next 5-10 years and have that figured out more
clearly.

As for mentors, working at startups I’ve had some pretty good success finding
mentors who were essentially advisors and at larger companies or retired
seasoned vets for the therapy, professional growth, and debugging
strategies/technical problems. I think that would be the same because you’d
have to make an effort to get something out of that mentorship - I don’t
believe mentorship is bought or falls into your lap, it usually happens
because of good chemistry (being in both sides of this).

As for stock compensation, from my understanding it’s usually options? Where
the company has to grow correct? If it stays flat, it’s basically nothing?
(Please correct next if I’m wrong, I’m a bit oblivious to this). Also from tax
perspective it also eats into this? Just want the post tax perspective and
assess the risk/rewards. Understandably, startups the stock is 99.9%
worthless.

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PMalhotra
Startups are very difficult but if the business idea is good then you can earn
a lot of money and grow your business. You just have to do the right thing
first by registering your business under the startup company registration
[https://www.taxolawgy.com/startup-
registration/](https://www.taxolawgy.com/startup-registration/). You can know
more from the link.

