SWE Offer selection - Google vs FB vs Amazon
I have these three offers (final offers) as an L4 / E4 Software Engineer generalist in Bay Area. Looking for some advice with picking one not just based on TC but in terms of -
* High growth. (I've been a bit complacent recently).
* SWE to MLE transition, opportunities to work on ML starting as a SWE with only basic knowledge of ML.
* Gain knowhow of system design & scalable services. (so far I've only worked on standalone product).
Amazon Alexa SDE2 (L5): Base/RSU/bonus1/bonus2: 175k / 340k / 160k / 120k
- Would work on cloud APIs to interface with some ML model being worked upon by some MLE in the team.
Facebook E4 SWE: Base/RSU/bonus: 177k / 400k / 75k
- Team selection is after joining FB bootcamp, but I checked that there exist teams which do ML work and have openings for SWE, and have other MLEs on the team to collaborate with.
- FB has some kind of ML Academy / ML Prep that supposedly makes the SWE to MLE transition easier. FB folks, can you shed light on how helpful it is? This is a main differentiator from google for me.
Google L4 SWE: Base/RSU/bonus: 175k / 320k / 50k
- Matched with a team that has backend services and some existing ML model that need some improvements.
Current TC: ~160k, 5 yoe.
#tech #machinelearning #swe
comments
Then consider that FB expects you to be productive ASAP and generally has worse WLB and your chances of successfully transitioning from one domain to another start to look bad. That said, if you don’t care about changing domains, FB promo to E5 is way easier.
Meanwhile at Google, even if you don’t land on the team of your dreams, transitioning is easy. And if you have the self discipline, you can use your free time to learn ML and jump teams pretty easily. Promo will *definitely* be slower though.
Source: recently switched to google for similar reasons and have no regrets.
The internal forums are littered with stories from E5s who tried switching domains (most commonly product to infra) and the TLDR is it’s doable, but very difficult. Maybe it’s less risky as an E4 ¯\_(ツ)_/¯