

Ask HN: Internship at Zynga or Hootesuite? - OceanMan

I have to make a choice between taking an internship at Zynga in San Francisco, or Hootesuite in Vancouver. Zynga is appealing to me because its an opportunity to relocate to SF temporarily, but a search on HN returns only negative things. Hootsuite on the other hand seems to be on the uprise.<p>Does anybody have anything to say about working at Zynga as an intern (or full-time employee) that could be reaffirming to a university student.
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fredsanford
Why do you want to associate yourself with the scumbaggery that is Zynga? Do a
google search and see why they have the bad rep.

Here's a link to get you started: [http://vator.tv/news/2013-07-07-the-good-
the-bad-and-the-ugl...](http://vator.tv/news/2013-07-07-the-good-the-bad-and-
the-ugly-of-zynga-under-pincus)

If you want to see and experience San Francisco, I guess you'll have to risk
it. But keep in mind, San Francisco has a pretty high cost of living.

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argonaut
Internships are highly variable and your experience depends on the team you're
on, your projects, your mentors, etc.

Assuming you have been offered to join roughly the same team/role at both
companies, etc. etc., I would advise you to go with Zynga. Is Zynga as a
company on the way down? Probably. But putting aside Zynga's poor product
performance, Zynga remains a well-recognized/assessed engineering brand,
whereas HootSuite is relative less of a brand. Zynga has plenty of challenging
and interesting engineering problems for you to tackle. And as you've said
yourself, having worked in Vancouver before, it's an opportunity to check out
SF.

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nrser
i would go with Zynga.

i was employee 7, lived many scumbagggeries during my tenure and am aware of
many more after my departure. not much to add to what you'll find online,
excpet that it might not have been the right thing or the right ways or for
the right reasons but we worked our asses off building that POS, Pincus as
much or more than anyone. the first year was a blast and i met tons of really,
really good people that I'm still close with.

your experience won't be like that. but you'll be in SF. the start-up thing
ain't for everyone (if you're interested based on how much money you think
you'll have in your bank account after a few years, you probably did your math
wrong), but if you want to make a go at it, i would get to SF. Zynga will
probably suck, but you'll meet people there and in town and you'll get to
experience first-hand the shit-show / circle-jerk / world-changing whirlwind
that is "The Valley".

you don't have to. anyone can build anything anywhere. but i would.

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verelo
I would do Hootesuite. Zynga is not all that, like you said there are not a
lot of great things happening there at the moment and Hootesuite is headed up.

You should checkout SF, but don't get suckered into thinking its amazing
either. There are some great companies but the city itself is expensive and
probably not all that livable. Vancouver is a real nice place.

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OceanMan
If the jobs were in the same place I would lean towards Hootesuite, but an
internship is the perfect chance to checkout SF without overcommitting. I've
worked in Vancouver before, but only visited SF. I just can't decide if living
in SF is a good enough reason to base my decision off of.

