
Ask HN: Would you rather work for Google or a smaller high growth company? - jiajiang
I read this article on Signifyd and HotelTonight on this website (BabyUnicorns.com). The whole website advocates for mid-sized high growth companies as places to work for, rather than large companies such as Google and Facebook. I am conflicted on this. Google is consistently ranked as one of the most desirable employers year after year. They will continue to dominate the world in the near future, and it&#x27;s a super cool brand to have on your resume. But am I missing out on the big upside provided by these smaller but fast growing companies? Sure they are much more risky than Google&#x2F;FB, but it&#x27;s not like HotelTonight or Udemy are startups and can go out of business any minute. It seems like they much a lot of upside through employee ownerships.<p>What do you think? If you are a 25 year old engineer who wants a corporate career, would you rather go to Google or a HotelTonight&#x2F;Signifyd&#x2F;Asana?
======
lmeyerov
Counterintuitive to assumptions being made here... you can easily be more of a
cog at a 50-5000 employee company than a 5,000+ person company.

The medium companies generally have a single true line of business and are
focused on tuning & turning that crank, turning $3M/yr to $10-100M/yr. Doing
something else makes you a trouble maker, and budgets are watched.

The bigger companies will have $100M-100B/yr revenue, so they'll do pretty
insane engineering on the old product lines ("let's reimplement PHP with a
modern VM!"), and take moonshots to enter new markets big enough to make a
dent ("Let's give internet to everyone in Africa.") So both quality of life
can be better and the projects can be more interesting and career defining.

So yeah, I'd go to bigco, or if a medco, one with enough ridiculous
growth/funding to do insane things. But not a lot of years of your life that
startups are easily doable, so I switched from R&D to startups, and can always
go back later :)

~~~
soham
Very much this.

A couple of more points to add:

1\. There was a time when the pay distinction between working for big
companies and small/mid was clear and present. But these days, the line is
blurring.

BigCos have realized that startups are eating their lunch and hence they are
investing heavily in new ideas and doing better engineering on the old ones to
develop those markets even further, faster.

Smaller companies too have realized that they need to compete with the BigCos
and hence have started to offer similar comps/perks. More and more of the VC
funded fast-growing companies are offering packages competing with BigCos.

2\. Hence, for a software engineer, the main reason to join/not-join a company
today is less about pay. It's more about the type of work you will get to do,
and the people that you want to work with.

3\. There is something to be said about having a brand, but given how tech is
percolating everything we do, it is also getting very differentiated. There
are hence brands in every "flavor" of tech. e.g. if you want to work on self-
driving cars, Waymo is a great brand. But if you want to work on healthcare
tech, there are others.

I train software engineers to do better at challenging interviews and I do
that for a living. The way I see it, the landscape has been shifting in this
direction for at least past 5 years, if not more. At least in the large tech
hubs of the US.

~~~
throwawaymath
I'm going to have to push back on your first point about compensation between
large and small companies. At a large brand name tech company, $300k isn't
uncommon for a few years of experience in SFBA or NYC. You don't need to land
on the right team or have magical luck, you just need to be a solid performer.
Even though startups are increasing base salary, they don't have liquid RSUs
as a rule and (in my experience) pay smaller bonuses overall.

I would say that if a software engineer is optimizing for income maximization
they should almost certainly join one of FAANG, unless they have a formidable
appetite for risk and uncertainty. Consider some of the data compiled here:
[https://www.levels.fyi](https://www.levels.fyi).

------
orky56
Google provides immediate brand recognition that shows future employers that
you've achieved a certain level success and/or are capable enough to get in.
In addition, Google pays very well and offers equity that has a tangible value
since they are already public, highly stable, and still have some growth in
their future. Having Google early in your career allows you to then seek
future opportunities having some money saved from salary/bonus/stock and with
more ability to get into leadership in smaller but still high growth
companies.

~~~
lsc
The other thing I want to point out here which I wish I understood in my early
20s is that cash you invest when you are young grows. long-term long-bets of
the type your mom would recommend (whole market index funds, real-estate,
etc...) really require time to work, so socking money away when you are young
makes a big difference.

I've got friends who earn about what I do who are about my age who, many
years, earn as much at this point from income on their capital as they do from
their regular job. I would be in that position too, if I had spent my money
working for a big company and socking cash away, rather than spending my '20s
running a business.

I'd make more money working for other people, too. Having a company with a
good brand on your resume means a hell of a lot more than running a lifestyle
company, even if that company succeeded as a lifestyle company.

------
provlem
I will share the suggestion shared by "Jack ma", the founder of alibaba group.

He said, To become an entrepreneur "One should work for small companies,
generally in big companies, you are part of the big machine, but in small
companies, you do most of the work your self and learn it".

So, it depends on what you want to be, if you plan to put your self in stable
career without much of risk involved - go ahead with big companies.

If you want to be part of next future companies, where you can learn much more
about the process of how company works and other information, start with
smaller high growth company.

The only thing that will differ be efforts to sustain and keep rolling upwards
for self and the company both in small company, while in big company, you will
have primary focus on your self to keep up with the company.

~~~
6ak74rfy
> If you want to be part of next future companies, where you can learn much
> more about the process of how company works and other information, start
> with smaller high growth company.

I think this is only true when the startup is really small, say, 5-20 people.
I was once part of a startup that had ~100 developers and I hardly learned
about its inner workings, was rarely part of any decision-making on business
or customer-facing use cases etc.

~~~
provlem
Not necessarily it has to be 5-20 people. it could be a team of 100-200 people
too.

But "~100 developers" that you mentioned, can not be small or mid-tech
companies, until half or more than half of the developers are useless.

100 developers in one company have potential to built the next billion dollar
product and literally change the world.

As you can see, some one just mentioned, FB has 250 developers (
[https://www.quora.com/How-many-software-engineers-work-at-
Fa...](https://www.quora.com/How-many-software-engineers-work-at-
Facebook/answer/St-Peter-6) ) and some people do have mentioned they have
approx 700, 900, or ....

But, important factor is - they have only 25K employee (source:
[https://www.statista.com/statistics/273563/number-of-
faceboo...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/273563/number-of-facebook-
employees/)) across world. There are more than 80+ office of Facebook world
wide (source:
[https://www.facebook.com/careers/locations/](https://www.facebook.com/careers/locations/)),
so even if you distribute employee evenly on all places - you will have approx
300 employees - each location.

My point is, if you were working in a company where 100 developers are
creating product, than you were either at wrong place or judging the company
wrong - one of them has to be true based on my research and opinion.

I do not want to offend any one with my post, I am just pointing the fact
based on my research, please leave a reply, If my research above is wrong or
misleading.

~~~
cemregr
It's absolutely not true that FB currently has 250 engineers. There were over
700 in __2012 __. The company has multiplied in size many times over since
then.

You linked to an answer with no source. Here's a revant post from the FB blog:
[https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-engineering/ship-
ear...](https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-engineering/ship-early-and-
ship-twice-as-often/10150985860363920/)

------
anoncon
Between the the two groups of companies you list, I'd take Google in a
heartbeat. The thing that nobody here is saying is this: at Google, you are in
a whole new system where internal moves are relatively easy. The first few
years you'll probably have to get tenure (L5), but once you have that, it is
very easy to make internal moves. Want to work on search? Start looking at
those job boards. Want to do research? GoogleAI is hiring. Want to work on
self driving? Google's holding company also owns Waymo.

On the other hand, if you end up on a bad team at a failing startup or
midsize, you have to go through the entire interview process all over again.
Going through that process can be a good experience, but eventually it gets
old and you might be ready to spend 5 - 10 years at one gig making multiple
year-long projects come to fruition. That's hard to do at a startup and even
at midsize companies. It is much easier at FAANG and particularly Google.

Full disclosure: I recently accepted an offer at Google.

~~~
skybrian
This seems a bit optimistic. Transfers do often happen inside Google, but the
laws of supply and demand haven't been repealed. Teams in hot areas with
limited headcount get to be choosy, and those positions will be harder to get.

------
axaxs
I've interviewed at lot of companies, a lot of which I had no intention of
taking.

The interview process I think says a lot about a company. I was very put off
by the processes of 2 of the big companies, so much so I'd never consider them
again as I think it's a bit of an indication of how they operate in general.

I found smaller companies tend to have a much more honest conversation with
you, and offer a lot of intangible benefits.

That said, if I were looking for money and benefits, the big ones are hard to
beat.

Oops, forgot to answer the question. I work for a...smallish company now as I
have for years, in a niche market. I appreciate the recognition I get, the
freedom I'm afforded, no micromanagement, no stack ranking, etc. That's worth
more to me than a larger salary, and having a known name on my resume at this
point in my life.

~~~
kyrra
What is it you don't like about the Google interviewing process? Having been
an interviewer at both Google and send mid-sized companies, I feel like the
process at Google is a lot more objective and fair for hiring people.

~~~
nojvek
Google interviewing process is a joke. If the interviewer can’t remember the
name and is reading the wrong resume you’ve failed.

I pretty much quit half way because I haven’t seen such a disorganized
interview process.

They probably get so many engineers wanting to work for them, I think they can
afford to let things be broken. Kind of artificially restricting the funnel.
Good for them I guess.

------
stormbeard
Dan Luu had an excellent blog post that you might be interested in:

[http://danluu.com/startup-tradeoffs](http://danluu.com/startup-tradeoffs)

------
jeffreylees
A smaller company (especially high growth) would be my choice any day. I
currently work for a smaller, high growth startup, and I prefer it a thousand
fold to the experiences in industry giant companies like MS or Google. The bad
would outweigh the good, to me. No doubt there is good - the name recognition
on your resume, the experience on big products with big-name hitters - but no,
even that wouldn't outweigh the burdens of the bigger corporate employment, at
least not for me.

A smaller startup / company can get things done faster, give you more
experience in potentially more areas and more types of projects. If it's a
high growth company it probably will make a fairly good resume item anyway.

The only caveat is that you have said: "who wants a corporate career" \-- if
by "corporate" you mean larger mega-companies, than of course, your choice
should be Google.

------
jpm_sd
Having worked at both, I'd recommend Google for a couple of years, then GTFO.
You'll get massively overpaid (save your money!) and you'll learn some useful
stuff. But it's a chaotic mess, the employees are spoiled, and you'll never
become a real grown-up if you stay there long term.

Looks great on your resume, though.

~~~
castratikron
I've interviewed there and my impression was that the average employee was
very young, straight out of college. When I was there I was 27 and I felt
slightly old.

~~~
marcja
I am 45 and I definitely feel* closer to the median at Google than to the
eldest extreme.

*Note that I can't back this up with actual statistics. I'm just saying that I don't feel anywhere close to a graybeard elder at Google at age 45.

------
tranchms
Work at the biggest and best company you can, with the best position you can
get hired for.

There is invaluable brand capital, and the network is priceless.

It’s the same rationale between choosing colleges.

I attended a top 14 university. I have instant respect and credibility.

I currently work for a massive global technology company. I have instant
respect and credibility.

Do I ask for it? No. Is it warranted more than the next guy? I don’t think so.

If you work for a smaller company, with a smaller name, you are limiting the
network you can leverage, in size and industry.

Brand capital. Signaling. Status. It’s a game, and there are gatekeepers. And
it all depends on how you want to play it.

Doesn’t matter what I studied at college. I went to a good college. People
think I’m smart.

Doesn’t matter what my position is. I work for a reputable global company.
People think I’m successful.

I would recommend putting the work in and playing the game early in your
career before you jump to smaller ventures, and take risks working at
companies with limited track records and speculative futures.

I scour LinkedIn and pay attention to the work histories of people I respect
and admire, and have achieved the success I desire.

There is a pattern.

~~~
skybrian
Are you a programmer? This isn't how any of the programmers I know judge
things. (The college part, anyway.)

~~~
tranchms
Sales engineer. Not a programmer.

~~~
andrewmcwatters
That's certainly an enviable position to be in, then.

------
013a
I vastly prefer smaller companies due to the outsized impact each employee can
have on the success of the entire organization, and the ability to wear
different hats.

Barring that, I prefer a Google/Microsoft/etc big 5 company.

I don't personally feel like there's a lot of draw to a low level position at
mid-sized companies, and I've worked at a few. You're going to sacrifice the
personal agency you get as soon as you go above, say, 10-15 engineers. So if
you're going to do that, you might as well go all the way and get the massive
paychecks, benefits, valuable stock, fringe benefits, and the in-place
infrastructure.

If I were looking for positions higher up the chain (CTO, Director, etc), then
mid sized companies start to look more interesting because you have the
opportunity to have that impact with a big team and product that's already in
place.

------
late2part
This is addressed quite well in Robert Coram’s Excellent _Boyd: The Fighter
Pilot Who Changed the Art of War_ with the life shaping question:

“Do you want to be somebody, or do something?”

You will be a really big deal at FANG but you are not likely to do as
interesting work as you would in a smaller mildly successful company.

[https://www.amazon.com/Boyd-Fighter-Pilot-Who-
Changed/dp/031...](https://www.amazon.com/Boyd-Fighter-Pilot-Who-
Changed/dp/0316796883)

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Boyd_(military_strategi...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Boyd_\(military_strategist\))

------
ilkan
Are you staying an engineer all your life or eventually be an exec? Do you
want to be well paid or influential? Are you a PhD who likes doing one thing
in depth, or are you a get-sh*t-done person who likes multiple interesting
projects? Do you plan to change jobs a lot or stay one place for a long time?

~~~
CyberFonic
I agree with your list and would suggest one addition:

What are your competencies and how do they mesh with the requirements of the
employer?

There are a lot of competent programmers who would never get employed by
Google and there are many brilliant engineers at Google who would struggle in
a GSD focused small company.

~~~
TACIXAT
What is GSD?

~~~
vishvananda
not op, but I assume it stands for Get Sh*t Done

~~~
alfredallan1
I thought it was German Shepherd Dog - highly focussed canines.

~~~
TACIXAT
That is what I know the acronym as too.

------
ScotterC
For me this question comes down to: What do you want to learn?

In a big company, most risk has been removed from the equation. This is great
for compensation and stability but also limits ones possible learnings as
well. You might find your time learning the big company’s systems which don’t
apply universally because they’re specific to that company’s needs.

In smaller companies, risk is still a real aspect of life. The downsides are
obvious but the joys are that you’re closer to the customer and your actions
have real impact. I find these types of learnings to be universal which is why
I’m drawn to it.

~~~
kllvql
I somewhat disagree with the idea that a Big Corp reduces your learning
opportunity. I work for one of the big companies, and one benefit I don't see
highlighted frequently is changing specialties. I have worked in 4 different
job families over 6 years. If you do work for a Big Corp and you're an
effective employee, you can pretty easily work on jobs at the border between
the job you have and the job you want. This may be specific to my employer,
but I've been able to find ways to demonstrate my (on the job learned)
knowledge in a field and get a job I find interesting.

~~~
ScotterC
I’d love to explore that more. That is one advantage of bigger companies, more
variety of opportunities and if you’re effective you can move between them or
define something in between as you point out.

One aspect that I’d like to put words to is something orthogonal to the
opportunities, which is the distance of the opportunity from the customer and
a ‘real’ problem. This isn’t always true in big companies but at most you’d
feel like a cog in the machine no?

------
pmontra
I'd go to a consulting company that builds custom software for customers. In
this way I'll see many different projects in different industries. But don't
go to a company that sends you to work on site for a customer and bury you
there. Stay in the main office.

After some years of that, consider switching sides and find a company that
builds its own products, whatever they are.

~~~
hansjan_
One thing to consider is that the quality of the individual projects might
well be much lower than working at a company that builds their own niche
products.

~~~
pmontra
However after 5 or 10 years of that only product you might end up knowing
perfectly only one tool, probably not the most relevant one on the market by
the time you plan to live. Those jobs always looked to me like dead ends.
Maybe it's different in Silicon Valley.

------
seangrogg
I just went through this conflict myself; there were several great startups to
choose from and yet I ultimately anchored myself to Google. A lot of my
rationale is anchored in a personal desire to become financially independent
and get into more of a semi-retirement lifestyle and may not be relevant,
but...

* Higher total compensation (after negotiating!) - though salary + bonus were competitive the additional equity really pushed the offer up and it's less ephemeral than younger companies

* 50% 401k matching basically adds +$9k to the offer and fits right into my financial goals

* Promotion potential; growing into a senior role is (mostly) defined and commensurately compensated

There are also a few other financial perks that Google enables me to take
advantage of that further sweetened the deal and were aligned with my
financial goals. There were many trade-offs made, but this overall aligned
best with my long-term goals.

------
b3b0p
No reason you can't do both? Start at the one you want now. Transition to the
other later. That's what I'm doing. This isn't an either or situation. If you
want to take the risk, now is the a best time probably while younger. However,
one could argue if you save properly doing the riskier option later might be
better. It will depend of course.

The other factor to consider is quality of life. How many hours and what types
of stress will the bigco job have versus the younger company? I joined the
younger company first and I don't think a single person works 40 hours and the
environment is relaxed, the CEO/founders are awesome! The pay is good, but
it's not Google levels, but there is opportunity to increase that. We are
quite profitable already. I can try for a bigco job another day, in fact any
day or not. However, for now, because of my life situation, I chose the
smaller company.

------
mabynogy
As an employee, go with the biggest company paying the more. Some sectors are
better (industry) than others (banking or medias). Some countries are better
(Germany and Japan) than others (China).

Don't waste your time with a startup or as cofounder (nothing else is good).

------
pspeter3
I think this is a tough choice and relies on the context. I work at Asana and
would be happy to chat with you if you want.

------
BerislavLopac
In my experience, the reality doesn't have much to do with the size of a
company; what matters is the management. Of course companies of different
sizes naturally have different management problems, but all of them can be
(attempted to be) solved in a number of ways, and this depends on individuals
in charge.

------
iancmceachern
That early in your career I would go with where you would learn the most. That
usually means whichever has the most challenging, complex, "buck rodgers" and
most importantly interesting to you project(s). For me it was blood pumps and
artificial hearts.

------
socceroos
I've grown to realise that I need to work on something I care deeply about. My
satisfaction is derived from doing something I know is worthwhile and beyond
just myself.

------
ghosterrific
Step 1. Take the stable route that pays more.

Step 2.Then save enough money to buy a 4plex house within a couple of years.
(5-10% downpayment)

Step 3. Live in thr 4th unit, rent the others and get a roommate in your 4th
unit.

Now, congrats! You live for free for doing nothing.

Next step:

Option A)

Save up enough money to repeat the model above.

After 2-4 houses.... you should be able to earn net positive minimum wage and
live for free.

Option B)

Save up enough money and put into ETH/BCH (and retire within 3-5 years when
next bull market comes)

Option C)

Start looking for remote jobs paying 150k-200k/ year and get them to pay your
own 1-man corporation so you control your taxes. While doing Option A and B
above.

You can retire by age 30-35 with this model.

Then you basically have "fuck you wealth". (Not "rich", but Wealth).

Then work at the companies You like and leave the moment you don't like them
anymore since you don't need them.

All the best,

------
mmagin
200-2000 employee companies have a lot less bureaucratic bullshit than 10000+
employee companies, and they also aren't as big of a life commitment as
startups.

------
AFNobody
Google for 5 years, build up a nest egg. Then work wherever.

------
asafira
What about small(er) companies majority owned by bigcos? They have an
opportunity to combine the best of bigcos with the best of (growing) smallcos.

------
jiveturkey
You're 25. Go to a small company and see what it's about. Put in 1-2 years.
Only you can know if you will like it.

------
s73v3r_
Honestly, it comes down to pay, and whether I get to go home at a reasonable
hour. Also, what the company culture is like.

------
Hnrobert42
I find google morally repugnant and turned down an interview with them on that
basis.

------
devereaux
smaller company anytime. or bigger. just not for google

~~~
jiajiang
What did Google do to you?

~~~
devereaux
Nothing. I just consider them as dangerous as Microsoft in the late 1990s.

I would never have considered doing anything with Microsoft in the late 1990s.

Likewise, I would never consider doing anything with google now.

------
raven11
No doubt about the upsides to joining Google or Facebook but their
compettitive edge is based on stolen user information. Unauthorized tracking
of users has been outlawed by SCOTUS. So their key compettitive advantage
follwing user around the web will be eventually shut down.

------
KaoruAoiShiho
Rethink "corporate career", absolutely insane, especially for an asian
american with the bamboo ceiling. You are harming your own prospects. Do what
is in your best interests and go work for a company where you're an exec from
the beginning: [http://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-
canada/article/...](http://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-
canada/article/2120983/bamboo-ceiling-seemingly-keeping-lid-asians-top)

~~~
alfredallan1
That somehow seems like a tenuous argument, especially when talking about tech
companies, when one looks at examples like Satya Nadella (MS) and Sundar
Pichai (Google) who’re both Asian - and 1st generation at that. In the case of
FMCG type companies, I’d actually agree with you, but in tech the evidence
indicates otherwise.

~~~
KaoruAoiShiho
Feel free to read the article I linked, it addressed your comment.

