I work in tech recruiting (full disclosure: recruited in the past for Google and Uber ATG) and was helping a new recruiter with getting calibrated on profiles. So, I figured I would make a list to share some top tech companies with her while she searched for top Software Engineers (SWEs). But once I got started, I wanted to try and thoroughly flesh out what I perceived to be the technical bar of companies in Silicon Valley (and East Coast). Here is the list I just put together (context below the rankings): P0 - Google X, Waymo, Quora, Uber ATG, Aurora Innovation, Palantir, DeepMind, Google AI, FAIR, UberAI, Uber Elevate P1 - Netflix, Google, Facebook, Instagram, Uber (rideshare), Robinhood, Airbnb, Verily Sciences, Youtube, Kodiak Robotics, Dropbox, Databricks, WhatsApp, Flexport, Square, Lyft Level 5, Occulus, Tesla Autopilot, Stripe, P2 - Twitter, Asana, Cruise, Amazon, Rubrik, Pinterest, Appian Corporation, Lyft, Zoox, ArgoAI, Anduril, Lab 126, Snap P3 - Slack, Okta, Uber Freight, Snowflake, Linkedin, Coinbase, Samsara, Bossa Nova Robotics, Oath, Microsoft, P4 - Apple, OpenDoor, Tesla, Bloomberg, Splunk, Twitch, VMware, Nvidia, Box, Instawork, Instacart, TikTok, Mixpanel, DoorDash, Nuro, DiDi, Lime, Pony.AI, Zume, Coda, Bird, Juniper Networks, Rackspace, Sapient, Oracle Cloud Computing P5 - Twilio, Walmart Labs, Zillow, Wealthfront, CreditKarma, Byton, Redfin, Workday, Peloton, Pandora, BazaarVoice, Adobe, Tableau, Salesforce, Indeed P6 - Oracle, IBM, SAP, Yelp, Yahoo , Optimus Ride, TuSimple, Dell, Intel, Intuit EDIT 6/26: Moving Microsoft down after group consensus that they are overrated at p1. Adding a few companies I forgot about: Snap (p2), Tesla Autopilot (p1). Apparently Oracle Cloud Computing has good talent (p3-4?), moving Salesforce, Tableau and Indeed up from P6 as they seemed to be ranked to low per comments. Moved Stripe up to p1 from p2. Deleted Cisco from p6. Won't add to list but will mention some fintech companies that were brought up in comments: Rentech, JUMP trading, Two Sigma, Jane Street, and Citadel. FWIW -- I created a stratum of perceived technical bars based on: 1. current software engineers in a given company (their past companies and higher learning degrees are generally solid indicators of talent, but obviously not the end-all-be-all. A CS bachelors or Masters will obviously be more reputable on the surface than an Econ major) 2. How tough the interviews at respective companies are (reportedly, at least) 3. Although biased, small sample size and anecdotal....I also used my experiences as a recruiter where I would knock a company down a peg in my mind if someone currently at a well known Tech company (hence passing their bar) would come interview at Google or Uber ATG and utterly bomb. Or, conversely, if many, many candidates from a specific company did surprisingly well in interviews (like Appian Corporation) then I bump them up. Personally, I think the tech talent can be very iffy at Apple and Telsa, even though they are blue chip stock companies.Hence, why I put them a bit low on the stratum. The top P0s are generally just because the SWEs have to be pretty specialized to get an offer or the interviews are known to be very hard (Palantir, Quora) Am I missing any company here? Ranking some too high? Too low? EDIT 6/26: shameless plug but since this got so much attention figured I should say I work with early stage, VC funded start-ups now, so if you are looking for a move feel free to email. Cameron@boulevardrecruiting.com #toptechtalent #topSWEs
Quora should be in a tier of their own, they recruit mostly ACM coders.
This is pretty solid, on the whole. I personally don't think as highly of Uber Elevate, and Palantir and Quora have lost a lot of their great talent IMO.
Know plenty of people whoâve failed P/Q interviews and then joined Google. I think both their bars are still very high, I understand this is purely anecdotal though.
Tableau and indeed are not that low
Tableau I feel you are right. Maybe one above? Indeed though? I have never thought of them as competitive with any top flight talent I've come across, like, they don't even apply there...
I got an offer from a P1 and joined Indeed instead, I think they're underrated. Of course, I am biased.
Adobe at the bottom đ±
Ah! Too be fair, they were one I struggled with! Adobe might have a much harder process and a ton of talent...I just haven't personally heard much about them and no candidates I have worked with ever brought them up as competing companies in any way. I could easily see them at P5 (maybe P4 with compelling evidence) level and they are for sure better than tons of the P6 tier companies imo. I guess chalk that one up to unfamiliarity on my part.
Fair enough đ
How do recruiters or you personally use this calibration? PS: I think this is a fair list but is obviously aligned to only what you have seen in your experience rather than a more researched one.
There's total bias in "calibration." Many companies will try and actively hold sessions to push back against it (Google had a training session or two about bias) but it creeps in everywhere. This list admittedly is anecdotal primarily on my experiences with candidates passing/failing interviews... or through my reading on Quora, Blind, etc about engineers' experiences during the interview process and how easy/hard they thought it was. I wouldn't treat it as gospel but in terms of calibration...we have new recruiters who will create a list of engineers they sourced and if they are horrible companies (one recruiter wanted to reach out to a Safeway Groceries software engineer for a big tech role...) then we help them refine their searches and understand what a typically good profile would look like (good CS degree, or trajectory in industry, or solid github, etc etc).
Cool, fair enough.
This can vary depending on the level the candidate is applying for. For example, amazon for < 3 yoe should be muuuuuch lower.
I actually thought of this but felt that would be too complicated. I heard some Amazon new grads were getting offers just by passing a coding challenge...if that's true....it would be pretty damning imo.
But they donât get to stay if they donât prove themselves
What's the P0 "FAIR"? Are we talking about the car startup?
Facebook Artificial Intelligence Research (FAIR)
I didn't know if I wanted to add a bunch of fintech type companies to the list like Jane Street/Citadel/Two Sigma etc since it might muddy the waters if we are talking pure tech companies (EDIT: I realized I have Robinhood and Wealthfront in there but they are user facing so a bit diff). But definitely there are solid coders out there in that sector. Not sure of Rentech. JUMP I just can't stand as a company and it's unfair since there are solid engineers there but it's maybe the worst run business unit I have ever seen, certainly the worst at Uber. So chalk that up to personal bias but it won't even be in existence in a couple years I bet
Kodiak robotics and Bossa Nova robotics kinda out there. From my experience, I think Tesla (autopilot) and Nuro especially should be a lot higher
Completely forgot to put Tesla autopilot on there, good catch. Seen a lot of top talent leave Uber ATG for Kodiak (although small company), heard good things about Bossa Nova but I could easily be convinced they should be lowered, didn't know exactly where to place them
Would you mind sharing which robotics companies in particular had candidates that interviewed at ATG and bombed as you mentioned? Curious if pony.ai falls in this category. I never interviewed with them but would imagine them to be decent given that one of their founder is a big name competitive programming scene.
Google AI has the same bar as rest of Google. Friends joined there it is the same standards for a software engineer and for a Research Scientist the bar is the same in non Google AI research teams and Google AI research teams.
Mentioned this in a reply above but definitely good to know about the bar being the same. Wasn't aware of that.
Lots of AI places are research based, those people may not even know how to print out âhello worldâ, so you may wanna redefine your notion of top software engineers.
Good point, I guess I figured if their title was Software Engineer rather than Research Engineer or Research Scientist and they are working at a place like Facebook AI, DeepMind, etc that they are likely elite coders. Maybe I'm wrong there.
Yes, you are wrong.