Google, Facebook or Airbnb?
Ok here I go too. :) L5 at Google. No number on offers yet but TC is not my priority. Career growth, team and people, company mission, culture fit and WLB are more important to me. Google Pros: many projects/teams to choose, lots of friends & connections, good WLB Cons: too many reorgs, slow career growth (sometime due to reorgs), path to L6 is long FB Pros: strong, mature and competent HMs, interesting projects, real money. Cons: not that different from Google in terms of size, wlb might be a concern Airbnb Pros: I like the mission & culture, I want to try a small company, potential to have bigger impact on new initiatives, good WLB, pre-ipo unicorn Cons: immature managers, not a lot of projects to choose from, paper money (valuation seems inflated), risk in business (government clampdowns on short term rentals) Over all I feel more excited about Airbnb simply because I have been at big corp for a long time. But current IPO trends and all these complaints about Airbnb on blind is not helping. Current TC ~$350- 380k flutuates a bit.
Avoid fb if you remotely care about WLB
@Korean728 what's your yoe and level? I worked ~50 hours at Google so my bar for WLB might be pretty low. :) It's important to learn how to prioritize, keep making progress on important / long term goals, and not let daily firefighting consumes you.
E5, 10 yrs exp. total. ~1.5 yrs at fb. I worked about 70 hours at FB until recently. Right now I am preparing and planning for an exit and don’t care about fb.. Yes, I know about effective engineer strategies. Doesn’t work at FB when tools and codebase is crap and one needs to continuously move fast
Be aware that Airbnb, while smaller than the other ones, is in no way a small company. Look for companies with <200 employees if you want to join a small company, but still have some semblance of security.
Come to Uber. I did the same jump 6 months ago
I'm not interested in the ride sharing business. None of the other unicorns excites me at the moment. In fact I only interviewed at FB and Airbnb (besides practiced with a couple of startups).
I don't know what to say if you prefer fb over uber. Have fun!
Can you go back to Google if you don’t like Airbnb or Facebook within one or two years? Why not give it a shot?
Yes Google's door is always open for me.
How does that work? No interview if you decide to come back for same level and pay? Do they give you a new stock grants similar to your unvested stock?
Your research on Airbnb pros and cons is spot on. Although not a small company, you will have a huge impact on any team you join at Airbnb. Managers are immature but if you’re at an L5 level, you should be able to guide your own career.
That's true, thanks for pointing that out. I'm ready to jump in or start a project -- trained by Google. :)
Thanks everyone for voting. I'm surprised so many votes to stay at Google. :D
Go to Facebook no doubt. You can always come back to Google.
I would suggest try even smaller company than Airbnb. Twitch/Cruise are good examples. They are acquired by larger Corp, but still operating independently. You will get liquid RSUs and also get chance to have high impact.
Oh hello I'm at cruise. We had a few ex-twitch people join us within the last month or two!
FB WLB is fucked up; everything else is awesome. If you don’t mind 60+ hours, FB is an incredible place. In my case, I have been doing 70 hours
WLB is not good on my team. People push commits all hours of the night and weekends. Also, be prepared to manage yourself if you come here.
Can you elaborate more on on "manage yourself"? Being a senior engineer I'm pretty independent when it comes to driving a project through completion. But I still need someone more senior to help me get to L6.
When there were 900 engineers, there were about 50 L6 and less than 20 L7. There are about 1080 engineers now. As for wlb, I’d say on most teams it’s ok to good. I usually leave the office past 8, but I rarely see people around the office past 7. Also, half the office works from home on Wednesday’s due to no meeting Wednesday’s. I hope this info helps.
You’ll notice that the complaints have basically died off in the last weeks. There were some big things done internally to address the pain points. Happy to address any specific concerns over PM. For company mission, team and people, and WLB Airbnb is the clear winner. Not sure where is better for the others. I think you did a pretty accurate job of comparing pros/cons though.
How is Airbnb in Seattle ?
It’s a much smaller office, <100 people