Facebook vs Google - New Grad
I'm having a hard time deciding between the two. My goal is to get promoted quickly and to work with a codebase that makes me happy to come into work every day. Interned at Google and it was ok, but things were certainly slow and it felt very 'cog in the machine'. But now google is offering a very cool team, Fuchsia. My other option would be Facebook, which I hear from friends is better for promotions and for making impact. The pros of Facebook (from my understanding) are fast moving, faster promotions, bigger personal impact (can get things into production), chose your own team, can switch teams easier. The pros of Google are higher quality code (and the expense of speed), cooler projects (Fuchsia > fb.com), better reputation. Those who have worked at either or both, which would you choose, and why? Which would you consider better as the first step in a career? (I can always switch after a year or two) TC is the same at both, $180k over 4 years
Google seems to be solidly winning the poll - I wonder how much of this is colored by the recent FB stories in the news vs the actual work environment?
People on Blind who donât work at google seem to love google. Youâve worked there though so you have way more context than most of us :)
Fuchsia does sound cool. Don't pick careers based on what's cool, though. How many jobs do you see for people who're good at writing OS internals? If you could chose only one between having impact and practicing engineering excellence, which one would you choose? That's the crux.
TouchĂ©. Picked NetApp due to the engineering challenges working on kernel code but it feels like it doesnât have any hypergrowth both monetarily and technically. Tough choice but pragmatism dictates impact over practicing engineering excellence.
That's a good point, working on something like scaleable webdev at FB is probably more applicable to other jobs. I'm having a hard time with the last question - I'll be spending most of my hours writing code, so I'd want to be enjoying what I'm doing. But will I enjoy it as much if its less impact? I don't know
Google has way more things going on within the company. Lot of interesting projects but I agree with the being a small brick in a wall.
Yes, but how much does that matter - you can only work on one of them
It matters because you have lots of options if you want to move internally. Which is way better than getting a new job because information asymmetry is less
Join fushia if you want to live in a bubble and not deal with business. Downside is lack of public launches might make perf hard. I don't have fushia team vs Google proper promotion stats though
Facebook is not a place with a codebase that will make you happy to come into work everyday.
Yeah, thatâs my biggest fear about it. Has it made you ever want to leave?
Yes. But you can still find some teams that write quality code. That's the benefit of choosing your own team here. Albeit, they might have their own flavor of fb problems not related to code quality.
Some harsh truths: 1 - Moving internally is not easy. You need to show good performance first. 2 - A good team is exponentially better than an average team (not linearly). You are going to spend 50 hrs a week talking and thinking about a product. Imagine the difference if you genuinely like it vs just getting by. 3 - Either way this is a commitment. If you donât like googles slow culture, you will still deal with it everyday till you leave. Same for bad things at FB. Congrats on both offers.
FWIW, I was in a similar situation and decided to join FB. Google seemed slow and bureaucratic, with multiple reviews and approvals for everything. The engineering is probably better, but I wanted to build stuff, not follow processes. I'd interned at Fb, and had a lot of fun
And are you happy with your decision? No regrets?
I haven't joined yet, but I liked life at Fb a lot, so I don't think I'll regret it.
TIL new grads at G/fb make more than L5 at Amazon đ
https://www.levels.fyi/comp.html seems pretty accurate
Not true. I know L4s at Amazon getting ~220k