Is it worth to work at fb/instagram [tech-wise]

New
tofF67

New

tofF67
Jul 25, 2021 10 Comments

I think I will receive an offer to work on Instagram and I have been thinking for a while. Yes, Facebook is a great company with great benefits, amazing perks and some of the brightest engineers in the world work here.

But, on the other side, Instagram is just an app for posting photos (in a nutshell). I am aware that they work at a very large scale and may have a distributed system with hundreds to thousands of microservices. They might do ML, big data analytics. Yes, that app gets complicated because of the scale.

But I, as a regular engineer, am I going to have the chance to do some interesting work? To me it looks like Instagram has reached its full potential (feature wise). I am afraid they might spend a lot of time on internal tools, or fixing stuff and too little on writing features from scratch. Hope to be wrong.
And the tech stack, what if I get to work with php. Say that I stay here for 5 years doing php. Then, when I want to leave I either have the option to go to another fang or to regular php company (which in general they work on not so cool stuff, WordPress etc)

Is the work at facebook one that will make you grow as an engineer?

comments

Want to comment? LOG IN or SIGN UP
TOP 10 Comments
  • This comment was deleted by original commenter.

    • I agree with Motional...easier to get in now than later...make money..move upwards within FB and when you come out after few years of experience you will be in a much better place taking risks ๐Ÿ‘๐Ÿป
      Jul 25, 2021
    • New
      wKfW60

      New

      wKfW60
      Plus you can always keep your skills sharp by helping out small businesses or non profits. Take the opportunity if you have it!
      Jul 25, 2021
  • Financial Services Company / Strategy
    esgcrypto

    Go to company page Financial Services Company Strategy

    PRE
    Amazon
    esgcrypto
    Isnโ€™t this every big company? Itโ€™s the early birds who really build the platform, rest just vest.
    Jul 25, 2021 0
  • The problems you mention are endemic to the profession, especially big companies, you will not "move fast and break things" and if you build features you won't get to design them / reason about their usefulness. 5 years from now new languages and tools will be the norm, you will have to learn new things forever, regardless. You will "grow as an engineer" with YOE more than actually knowing and doing things, in the eyes of hiring managers. Just worry about name value, pay, and WLB and be a good little well paid monkey :)
    Jul 25, 2021 0
  • Uber
    ๐Ÿฆ…hawkeye

    Go to company page Uber

    ๐Ÿฆ…hawkeye
    Interview and get more offers at technologies that you want to work/learn. There are lot of start-ups trying to solve interesting problems, for someone your experience it's right time to explore new stuff than settle for TC
    Jul 25, 2021 0
  • Enjoy Sweet TC then jump to something else after cliff
    Jul 25, 2021 1
    • New
      tofF67

      New

      tofF67
      OP
      I am only 3 yoe I still have a lot of things to learn, I feel that now is not the moment to got strictly for money.
      Jul 25, 2021