I have a friend who is deciding between an SWE internship at Mongodb or Microsoft. They are both general offers and I’d like to get a sense of what the community thinks is better from a career perspective!
Microsoft is generally better than what?
My own 2 cents: I interned at MongoDB last Summer; took it over some big names coz I wanted to work on something impactful. When me and my friends talked about our experiences at the end of the Summer, I realized I was the only one who actually had my work shipped to production and awaiting release. My friends at MSFT were basically working on your typical "intern projects" that was supposed to "teach them about real-world software engineering" while I was fully integrated into the team and project (tbh, you're treated no different from full-time engineers) and your mentors are always there to help you out whenever. Maybe it was the teams in which my friends were in, but I would say in average, the difference was too clear at the end of the Summer coz we worked on a side project together in September and most of what I was doing just seemed strange and complex to them lol. Bottom line is, I personally would say MongoDB is better for your early career coz you won't be doing any menial bs but actual work.
Microsoft is generally better. However, if your friend has particular interest in databases, specialized group at Mongo DB can be better.