I have a SWE offer from Facebook Bay Area for level 4, 250k TC. I'm also expecting an offer for Asana for a fullstack position. Which to choose? There are a few things important to me: Working in SF. Facebook team match would be through bootcamp, but they seem to have plenty of openings for the SF office. Asana is based here so SF is guaranteed. Work-life balance. I've heard the horror stories about Facebook (long hours, PIP culture) which is the main thing I'm hesitant about. I'd try to join a team that isn't so intense but that could be hard if I'm limiting it to SF. Things like no on-call and 40-hour workweek are definitely attractive to me. I'm not sure what Asana is like in that respect, everyone says good things about their culture but I haven't heard much about wlb. Facebook PIP culture worries me, I'm not planning to underperform but the fire-happy culture makes me uncomfortable. Team/project. I'd like to do product work, something backend or fullstack. Both should have plenty of opportunities for that but Asana says they won't be able to team match before the offer deadline. I could be stuck with something less exciting because of that. With Facebook I'd get to choose through bootcamp. Compensation. Asana seems to be doing well but Facebook's liquidity is pretty appealing. Asana's comp will probably be similar, though if it were much higher I'd accept for sure.
Facebook for the branding. Faang is amazing on a resume
Imagine being in 2020 and still think "prestige" or "branding" matters > 3 YOE
Cute response
What are you thinking about buddy? Facebook of course
The things mentioned above 😊
It depends on teams FB do have so many teams with good WLB
If you already have G/FB on resume then Asana else FB. FAANG is great bouncing pad.
I think it's just Facebook / Google / Netflix which adds more value to your resume
How's been your wlb in FB?
you seriously cannot believe what you read on blind. ask your friends in real life. asana was founded by ex FB.
I have. Don't have any Asana friends unfortunately
I'm not saying it's not good. It's a great company however FB brand name is just too good on your resume. Every other company wants Ex fb and ex-googler etc. You can't decide a company based on who founded it.
Heard a lot of the SWE on product side have no oncall at all and wlb is good. Unlimited PTO and 6 weeks paid sabbatical every 3 years. Wlb wise Asana should be better than average FB teams.
Unlimited PTO does not mean good WLB. It's just a way to save money.
I was more talking about unlimited PTO AND good wlb (40h week). Yes indeed UPTO means nothing and can lead to no vacation at all. According to friends though, they do take around 3-5 weeks off a year on avg and are encouraged to do so.
know two peeps at asana and both extremely positive. thinking about heading that way myself if I can find opening... as reprieve from toxic sludge masquerading as lyft culture. dunno much about product or industry though. on dimension of culture it seems like no comparison. after spending time in shit culture (lots of good people but ...) that factor has risen significantly in importance.
Is Lyft not good anymore? Seems like they are hiring again
Because so many people are quitting.
Everyone seems to love Asana... But Facebook's not bad at all. Can anybody comment who's worked at both or made this decision?
Hi I've worked at both. Currently at Asana. And oh my god I have no desire to go back to FB. My TC is much higher than I would be getting at FB (there are liquidity events). WLB is significantly better. My manager actually gives a shit. I don't have to commute down to MPK every day. Culinary is on fire (well when we have an office, which we're getting a new one soon!). Eng quality is quite good here. Sure our superstars are less than FB superstars, but the average quality is much higher than FB. Oncall for product is ez and chill (not a laptop carrying oncall). Infra is harder and rougher, getting better though. Team switching is pretty easy here, if there isn't a match or you want to do something else, you can. It may not be instant, but if it's within manager's manager's reporting area it's done whenever you get the other HM to take you. Growth is obviously good and we're hiring at the same pace before COVID. That said, FB bootcamp was probably the best time I've ever had as an engineer. Best 3 months. The rest sucked (maybe I just picked the wrong team who knows). FB performance reviews are a serious stress / anxiety point and it's all about shipping junk. Asana is very aligned on making the business / company better. Not just "did you move x metric n%" At the end of the day if you want to join a company which you can grow and stay in for a few years and have its success be your own then join Asana. If you want to hop jobs every year, join FB, the brand name will open doors for you (ex: Google was just offering straight to onsite no phone screen). TC: 330 YOE: 4
^
I've been at Asana about a year and I really like it here. People are super friendly and supportive. Management is thoughtful and seems to genuinely care about about the employees. Obviously, no job is perfect and free from friction, but this is the best place I've ever worked, and it's not even close. Addressing your questions (and some raised in the thread), point by point: WLB: It's good. It's not something I hear people gripe about. My manager regularly checks in on me to make sure I'm feeling comfortable with the pace of work, and if I feel too heavily loaded, he'll quickly try to de-scope and/or redistribute work. If you want to work 40 and call it a week, you'll be fine here. Many people do that. I don't see a lot of folks working nights and weekends. I've not joined an on-call rotation yet, but the Product Engineering ones don't seem that bad. I've heard some of the Infrastructure ones are more challenging due to staffing issues, but they're working on training people up to fill out those rotations. PTO: We have unlimited PTO here, and people actually use it. My manager tells me I should try to use at least 20 days a year. My observation is that most folks use about that much. Team-matching: Most teams are good. I'm not aware of any teams that "suck", i.e. they have a reputation as being ones to avoid. There's obviously variance, but if you don't like the team you're on, you could always switch. Team switching here is pretty low-friction. Compensation: It's tricky to value Asana's offer, since we're private. My L4 offer was around where your FB offer is, so I'd expect we'll be in the same ballpark. If FB goes much higher after negotiation and we aren't able to match, I'd suggest thinking about whether the marginal N dollars/year is worth the potential quality of life hit. I've never worked at FB, but it sounds like quality of life can vary greatly depending on team. At Asana, inter-team variance is low. Most (maybe all?) of the product engineering teams are good ones to work in. Another thing to call out: at big companies, the teams with good WLB are also often ones with lower promo velocity and doing less interesting work. I work with a couple of folks that interned at both FB and Asana, and they picked Asana and are happy with their choice, so that's another data point. But there are probably people working at FB who chose it over Asana and who are also happy with their choice, so I'm not sure how much that helps. Outlook/IPO: I can't talk about company outlook b/c we're in a quiet period ahead of our public offering. But I can say that management has been very transparent through the entire process and I trust they'll handle the public offering the right way. Since our founder is already a billionaire, he doesn't need to try and squeeze an extra buck out of the liquidity or fundraising events. So no bad terms or excessive dilution, etc.
That's very useful, thank you. How do evaluations/raises/promotions work?
+1 It’s one of the best options in the city at the moment.
Ex-Asana here. I can say that Asana is as close to perfect as it can be in terms of healthy company culture and leadership. I was a PM. Talking to my engineers who left FAANGs to come to Asana (there’s a lot), the consistent theme why they left a Google, FB or Amazon was that they either weren’t learning much as junior engs since most were dealing with cog-like work, legacy code, or just awful people managers. I’m sure there are FB teams that don’t have any of that, but I can tell you that it’s much less likely at Asana given the size and quality control. Also, keep in mind that the Blind community is statistically biased towards brand names, rankings, and TCs. Things that are supposed to make people happy but usually don’t. At Asana, I got happiness, growth, and the luck of joining a startup that grew fast and is actually going to go public. Good luck!
That's very insightful. Thank you! What does the performance review cycle look like at Asana? And why did you leave?
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Roommate works at Asana, they have a killer culture and roommate is very happy there. Already announced plans to IPO this year, but idk if that will materialize right now.
Yep, I've heard great things about them. Probably they'd IPO within the next couple of years if they postpone it
For obvious reasons, I’ve become a cynic when I hear ”the IPO is just 2 years away!” Make sure you’re ok with that equity not being liquid for the next 4 years. If you’re ok with that, then I’d take asana if comp is equal or greater than fb. Worked at fb before Airbnb, and it made it very hard for me to maintain healthy personal life and relationships outside of work. Though that is team dependent like you said. Best of luck!!