Current #Google Sr #Staff eng thinking about moving to #Databricks. Curious to hear firsthand experiences comparing the two. Everyone at DB seems very smart and gung-ho. Google, in my estimation, can be a bit sleepier ("rest-and-vest") or just insular (too many lifers). However, I wonder: - How much IPO fever is there at DB? - One of the advantages of Google is that, for the most part, Googlers still take "don't be evil" seriously. I'm not saying DB is evil! But enterprise software has a slightly different feel to it than "changing the world", right? - How's the culture compare to Amazon (where a lot of DB-ers are from), Oracle (or similar enterprise-sales companies), and Google? - I'm especially curious about the tradeoffs between Google-style empowerment (great for junior engineers, but a bit chaotic) vs Oracle-style authoritarianism (good for senior engineers and getting stuff done, but maybe a bit of a straightjacket). Please indicate if you have first-hand experience or not. tc: ~700k - offer ~800k
TC or GTFO
If you chose to move, I would suggest to ask for 1M+. Meta pays that much (~1.1M) for sr staff, am sure DB can too.
How much of that $800k is paper money? I wouldn't move for 14% incremental when a big portion is monopoly money.
- there is a lot of IPO fever. 90% of the company has had no liquidity, that's people here four years or less. - we are about as corporate-moral as Google. At the end of the day both are for profit companies though. - we're culturally more like Google than anything, just selection bias towards more ambitious people imo. You get that at any startup. Amazonians are around but that's not the culture really. - we're somewhere in between those archetypes (Google vs oracle)
+1 Also, Most complaints from eng ICs are from L4-L5s about the org being top heavy. L7s seem pretty happy here, they own significant features and are also hands on.
False. Use $40/share, as thats how much RSUs are going in secondary markets.
Can you tell me more, eyepeeoh? I thought you couldn’t really sell the RSUs at all because of the double trigger provision (i.e., you don’t really have them unless there’s another round or, more likely, an IPO). Obviously that’s also bad in its own way: it’s future money, not present money.
It is great being l6+ at Databricks. If you are l5 or under, it is hell
I’ve heard that. Can you tell me more? Google, for better or worse, is a place where L4s and L5s have big ideas. (Better: great ideas can come from anywhere, and an L4 can grow to be an L9. Worse: hard to get things done when opinionated L4s want to relitigate the fundamental assumptions of a business decision!)
Databricks has very hard promo process, and often times many l5 are stuck due to a large amount of l6 and l7 already. DB prefers to hire external l6 and l7 instead of promoting home-grown talent. Also, most of the coding, ops and firefighting are done by <= L5
@OP, I'm in a similar boat. Was your DB offer an L6 or L7 offer? Mind sharing the breakdown? (did it come with a sign-on bonus?)
L7. Don’t have it in front of me but breakdown is like 300-something cash, 400-something equity. No cash signing bonus—just initial equity grant. Hard to get more cash out of DB, but they’re pretty flexible on equity. They were pretty transparent that I can ask for more (so, like, I will, right?).
Thanks. If you dont mind me asking, how many RSU units? Based on levels fyi, it does seem like equity is low.. what was it priced at? 73.5 or some other dollar amt per share? Let me know if it would be easier to DM (so you dont dox)
What percentage of 800k is paper? I don't know if 100k TC difference is worth giving up liquid money.
I wouldn’t say the comp is the main point here. Goog will match or mostly match (though DB will go higher in bargaining). I agree with your point, but really I care more about the job and culture…
Tc at Google? TC offered at DB?
Ok, fair enough.