

Advice for a new CS grad - wolet

Hello everyone!<p>I would like to ask your advice. I am not a native speaker so I apologize for my mistakes.I hope you have time to read and reply.<p>For general case:
- who should work for big tech companies(facebook,google,amazon etc)?
- who should go after his ideas as an entrepreneur?
- who should go for masters degree?<p>For my case : 
I will graduate in June and I am not sure what to do next. Here are my  options :<p>- apply for big tech companies : I will have an interview with google on July but I tried my luck with others(Microsoft, Google, Spotify) and though I made it to final levels for some, I could not make it. I am not sure I am the right fit for these companies. I worked on interviews so much and I feel tired and lost my faith. During one  interview,a guy from Facebook told me that "if you were an actor you would come to Holywood, as a coder you should come to Silicon Valley" what do you think?<p>- Go after my ideas : like everyone, I have some ideas and a plus I have skills to build them. But in Turkey, it is really hard to get funding if you are not doing e-commerce. On the other hand I need to earn money.<p>- begin to masters degree in computer science: I am interested in NLP and there is a lot to do with Turkish.<p>thanks for reading, hope you have something to say!
======
bzalasky
Go after the problems you're interested in working on (like NLP). Masters
degree or not, having something interesting to show beyond a degree will not
only let you develop your skill set in an area that fascinates you, it will
bring you more job opportunities in the long run.

~~~
wolet
thanks a lot!

------
smit
I would suggest joining an early stage startup. They pay really good money as
well as give you equity making it a sweet deal. Some that are funded have
sweet perks as well. Sounds like that will give you some experience to
eventually work on your own idea.

~~~
wolet
in Turkey startup culture is a little bit different(in terms of giving equity,
perks and opportunities etc). But I understand what you meant. thanks a lot!

~~~
smit
Move to to San Francisco. Startups are killing each other to find engineers.
No joke.

~~~
wolet
worth a shot,that will be my last move.

~~~
eshvk
Couple of points:

1\. Not sure what your citizenship status is but if you are not a US
citizen/Permanent Resident, it becomes rather difficult for you to get a job
here (especially at an early-stage startup where sponsoring your employment
visa might be expensive).

2\. I don't know how much you are into the whole NLP thing. However, if that
is something you want to explore in depth (maybe work for a couple of years
figuring out what you want to do in that etc), it might be better to target a
late stage startup or a big co. The reason being that at many places in the
early stage, things are in a bit of flux and machine learning/NLP is regarded
at best as pixie dust that is going to magically solve problems and at worst
as something that gives extra jazz to an application that doesn't really need
any ML/NLP. Obviously there are some incredible early stage startups that are
doing amazing work in the field: E.g. prismatic so there are exceptions to
this rule too :)

~~~
wolet
thanks a lot! obviously there is a lot to learn about Silicon Valley.

------
ssylee
I think you may need to seek advice from your colleagues in Turkey more than
Hacker News.

~~~
wolet
thanks! already doing that. but I need different point of views,too.

------
wolet
just found this and it was really helpful :
[http://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-
pro...](http://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-programmer/)

------
yashchandra
Even though I am sick and tired of the corporate culture, working on my side
projects and hopeful of my own to-be startup soon, I highly recommend you go
and work for one of the big companies for first 2-3 years. It will teach you a
lot of things and most importantly, show you that you gotta do your own thing
and not work for the man for the rest of your life. Unless of course, you have
an entrepreneurial itch that you are already dying to scratch.

~~~
wolet
thanks a lot! what are the cons of corporate culture when you consider your
experience?

~~~
yashchandra
Corporate culture likes: access to lot of smart people, big teams, plenty to
learn about large businesses, gives you perspective on many types of business
functions, culture etc, you get to hear about _every_ possible tool/software
in the world Corporate culture dislikes: too much red tape, takes forever to
get something done including access to a particular software/tool, not much
choice of working preference, shitty cubes (mostly), most ppl are there just
to do their job and not many care about innovations or value add, too many
crappy legacy software which no one wants to change. plenty more to add....

~~~
wolet
who cares about innovations in corporates?

