First, I am incredibly thankful everyday to still have an internship during covid. Thank you for reading this wall of text in advance :) I've had an awesome time interning at Coinbase: feel like I'm learning an incredible amount from my team (especially my mentor), and I really get along with all of my coworkers. I love the high volume environment, so I'm genuinely excited to wake up and learn everything I can. Originally, I was shooting for Uber/Lyft + FAANGMULA, or even considering MS in CS from one of {Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Stanford, MIT, Berkeley, CMU} as I have a possible opportunity there. Now, I feel more excited about joining Coinbase full time, but have a couple qualms (mostly inspired by this app, lol). Qualms: 1) I'm first and foremost concerned about the engineering ability I might lose out on by not joining a company like Facebook. 2) I know I will be sacrificing liquid TC by joining Coinbase. 3) Though my team is great, it is not really related to what I originally saw myself doing long term... 4) And since I've had limited ability to observe other teams since remote, idk if switching teams upon joining FT will give me the same team environment I'm liking. What do you think? Coinbase, FAANGMULA, or MS for becoming a solid engineer (Please comment reasoning)? TC: 50/hr #coinbase #faang #masters #newgrad
You had a good experience which is great, but there are relatively better companies (eng quality, pay, problem space, trajectory) out there so would advise you to try and shoot for more since it sounds like you are capable and ambitious. Also you're just starting out, so it's hard for you to truly know what is the spectrum of 'good' out there and what fits you best. Seeing other compankes/teams will help you grow. I dont think coinbase is a bad choice, just want to make sure that if you are curious, then id encourage you to explore so that your sense of good/bad becomes calibrated rather than climbing the first tree you see in the forest! Rereading your post, I feel like you'd enjoy a high growth place more. I.e unicorn or new team going 0 to 1 in a larger company
This is very kind advice. Thank you. You know I'll continue LC'ing regardless ;)
As someone who had all FAANG and multiple unicorn offers who decided ultimately deciding to take the Coinbase one, I will say I am definitely enjoying my time here. That said, how would you recommend when considering my next opportunity whether Coinbase is the right company to be with or to go with one of these other ones? It’s really hard to tell because you can’t try them all out right? It does seem to have more opportunity to grow as there are leads/managers in their late 20s/early 30s which would never happen at a FAANG right? Could you give me some examples of situations I’d wanna be in. From what I can see, Coinbase is definitely the leader in the crypto space, with a lot more upside than going to Google/FB. I guess at the end of the day, other than the obvious such as joining Renaissance Technologies or gambling on the next FB, what really is considered “better”?
Not beginning your career at G/F is a major setback, from my personal experience.
Why?
Because those companies down level people coming from elsewhere.
Join Coinbase and keep leetcoding
As above, this will happen regardless.
Did you get a return offer already?
Coinbase because you're enjoying it so much and there's massive upside that you just can't get anymore at G and FB. They'll always be there for you after you've been at Coinbase a few years and have either gotten burned or have become rich.
Depends. If you get put into a good team and manager that advocates for your growth within the company, you could make big splashes at coinbase while playing start up lottery possibly making it big (you won’t have that many as a new grad tho) through your options. If this is so and it serves to grow your network then this is a good deal for you. However if you want to try something else that’s more related to what you can do long term and make MORE money do that.
As someone who had all FAANG and multiple unicorn offers who decided ultimately deciding to take the Coinbase one, I will say I am definitely enjoying my time here. That said, how would you recommend when considering my next opportunity whether Coinbase is the right company to be with or to go with one of these other ones? It’s really hard to tell because you can’t try them all out right? It does seem to have more opportunity to grow as there are leads/managers in their late 20s/early 30s which would never happen at a FAANG right? Even if we narrow the scope down to purely compensation, there’s a lot of security and probably a higher current pay at Facebook (and Google with competing offers) but the career progression is probably slower there than at Coinbase right?
Following are my personal observation only. We are not going to IPO before 2023-24. There are multiple reasons. We are profitable and don't need to raise more money. We have strong vision of crypto economy and spearheading the work required for it. There are lot of eyes on us so we going IPO will be defining moment for crypto and we are cautious for that. Few years ago JPM head said crypto is pyramid scheme and now they opened our accounts. Crypto was blamed for illegal use only and now it's being treated as an investment/ assets. Our long term future is bright and since you are getting an opportunity to work with us I would stay for at least 2 years to lock your exercise period to 7 years.
I noticed you pointed out a lot of opportunities at Coinbase on a macro scale. As someone who had all FAANG and multiple unicorn offers who decided ultimately deciding to take the Coinbase one, I will say I am definitely enjoying my time here. That said, how would you recommend when considering my next opportunity whether Coinbase is the right company to be with or to go with one of these other ones? It’s really hard to tell because you can’t try them all out right? It does seem to have more opportunity to grow as there are leads/managers in their late 20s/early 30s which would never happen at a FAANG right?
Why 2023-2024?
Making a similar decision if you wanna DM me to talk!
What? You said you have all FAANG and many unicorn offers and took Coinbase...?
Yup its an internship and I know what experience to expect from a FAANG offer having being at one of Google/FB before. Coinbase is a unicorn too. If I had stripe I probably would’ve took that one but the unicorns I did have weren’t as interesting products imo
Hey! New intern here, Can you shed some light on return offers and new-grad TC? I'm just curious when they'll let us know and what the latest TC is. Thanks!
Coinbase is a great place to start. If you think there is ample room for growth as an engineer, go for it. You are brand new in your career, you can always settle for the rest and vest later in life.