I previously posted a poll with 4 offers, but those were initial numbers. I got improved offers from all companies, and now I have narrowed the choices down to two. Which would you pick, considering that I plan to re-interview for faang in another year? My thinking is to prioritize: 1. wlb - so I can have extra time to study and interview prep 2. impact - so I have more interesting stories to tell, so when I do go to faang, it'll be more likely to be senior level than a downlevel. both roles are fully remote I'm in SoCal, which I assume is somewhere between MCOL and HCOL 9 YOE current TC: 135k Illumio (cybersecurity startup, series F) - P4 staff 234k base 15% annual bonus 65k shares stock options, $3/share strike price 30k sign-on bonus TC: 269k + 30k sign-on + lottery ticket pros: +cybersecurity is hot +staff title and responsibilities +strong base, very competitive offer +stock options "lottery ticket" +work directly with the CTO +gain cloud skills (AWS, GCP, Azure) +strong funding and investor backing +Andreessen Horowitz is an investor neutral: =late stage startup =fairly mature, but unsure when will IPO cons: -startup culture, priorities can shift rapidly -wlb likely reduced -some scale -worse on call (one week per month) Zynga - Principal 1 175k base 15% annual bonus 175k RSUs TC: 245k/year pros: +gaming industry is fun (I'm a gamer) +principal title and responsibilities +competitive offer, considering gaming industry +very passionate manager +already operating at scale (millions of DAU) +on call rotation not a huge burden +Take-Two acquisition could open up opportunities +wlb likely better neutral: =very mature, but legacy tech stack =revenue focused cons: -less likely to build something from scratch -most gaming problems are already solved #illumio #zynga #tech #engineering #software #swe
I’ve heard ghost stories about gaming companies from multiple sources, Zynga ones included
What’s illumio preferred price? You make money on the spread between preferred and strike
Current price for investors is $6/share, but it's still stock options, so I think even if I exercise my options at $3/share, it really depends what the price is when the company actually goes public, right?
To people voting Illumio, is being on-call not a big deal? Also having CTO as manager vs guaranteed passionate/supportive manager?
Zynga is secure if you have issues with job security and there is no pip even if managers want to put
Understand at Illumio the current investor price is based on series F valuation pre-market meltdown.. As of now preferred price and current valuation are probably the same after the metldown with all the down rounds Secondly., The Illumio CEO has a sales background and isn’t exactly and engineer. Expect a lot pf presure from sales on unreasonable requests. I interviewed there some time back and personally did not like the culture and the leadership
Hi
Hey there, can I please DM for a referral?
Sorry for reopening an old thread, but what did you decide ? And how do you feel about your decision OP?
Can I dm you? Got questions about the onsite process. Thanks!
I’d say zynga but then again I’m biased :P WLB on my team is pretty damn great. So if priority 1 is WLB then I highly recommend going with Zynga. It’s also a great door opener to the game industry, I can’t tell you how many game companies have started reaching out to me for interviews after starting my work here.
Zynga is an awful place to work. Source: worked there for 2 years
Maybe on other teams or the team you worked on lol I work in one of the studios they acquired and our work culture has remained untouched. Source: currently work here and my WLB and team are wayyyyyy better than the FANG job I previously worked at.