

Ask HN:  Would you rather work for Microsoft or Amazon? - futureintern

I am trying to decide whether I'd rather spend my summer at Microsoft or Amazon as an intern.  Unfortunately there's only one of me...good problem to have, I guess, but still requires a decision.  There are things I really like about Microsoft and there are things I really like about Amazon.  Everyone I've talked to from both companies seems really happy there, but I guess if they're talking to potential hires that's then it's their job to seem happy.  The team I would be on at Microsoft is a reasonably interesting one (and my potential manager seems like a really good guy); with Amazon I'd get to list team preferences after accepting my offer.  The offers are pretty similar in most respects; one is a few hundred dollars more a month than the other, which is nice but I feel that it's less important in the big picture decision of choosing a company.<p>This decision carries extra weight because although it's just an internship, assuming I do well it may become my first full time job after I graduate next year.<p>So...if anyone at HN has experience working at either company, or knows people who do, or just has some advice/insight, please share. :) Thanks!<p>(I'm a reasonably active HN user, but created this account to increase anonymity - so I'm not just wisdom leeching.)
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icey
Do you feel that you want to be a career developer or do you think you'd
prefer starting up somewhere?

If you think you want to be a career guy, go with Microsoft; it's golden on
any resume and it has the benefit of treating its employees very well.

If you think you want to be a startup guy, I'd say that you hear about many
more people doing startups with Amazon in their past than Microsoft. Plus,
Amazon is an expert in the efficiency game - they know what technologies can
get the job done, and being exposed to that culture is great for forming the
startup mentality.

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elq
one of the reasons you hear about more amazon folks in starups vs. MS is that
MS generally treats developers very well so they tend to stay around. Amazon
is not such a great company to work for, at least according to the people I
know that "did time" there.

~~~
futureintern
Thanks - that's the kind of thing I was hoping to find out. Could you
elaborate a bit on why people didn't like being at Amazon?

~~~
elq
the general theme was amazon is cheap - cheap computers, cheap office space
(poor ventilation, uncomfy chairs etc), long hours, a large amount of pager
duty (1 week/month not uncommon), relatively poor pay, etc

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vaksel
Can you give a general idea of what kind of "team" at MSFT? is it internet
related or software related?

~~~
futureintern
Well...both, actually. Sorry for the vagueness, but I prefer to stay anonymous
as much as possible.

