Company/Location/Base/Equity/Sign-on Apple/Cupertino/135k/270k/50k Google/MTV/120k/250k/50k FB/Menlo Park/115k/150k/100k Palantir/Seattle/115k/60k shares of options/50k Citadel/Chicago/150k/No Stock, at least 60k/yr cash bonus/100k sign-on Microsoft/Bay Area/130k/150k/50k Uber/SF/110k/110k/20k The equities are all 4-year totals except for Palantir which is 5-year. A few things that I don’t agree with many of the posts on Blind: 1. Apple pays lower than FB? They have much better initial figures and refresh than FB 2. Google numbers can go really high if you have competing offers, but FB was only able to increase the sign-on 3. Uber’s new grad offer is quite lowball and is non-negotiable In terms of my interview experiences with these companies, I was pretty impressed by the people at Google, Apple, Palantir, and Citadel. I didn’t like FB though as my interviewers seemed pretty incompetent. It looked as though they simply memorized LeetCode to get into FB but in fact had very poor backgrounds(although this is just a small sample and doesn’t reflect the whole company). FB also does diversity hiring nowadays, requiring all schools, regardless of reputation, to be equally represented. My school (Stanford) had a higher % of people whose resumes got rejected by FB than SJSU. I wonder if anyone can give me some advise mainly on choosing between Google, Apple, Palantir, and Citadel.
Did you go to Stanford also when you are an undergrad?
Nope. One of the top 15 colleges
Be a Googler. Better work environment than Apple, and top of industry reputation for resume. Palantir many view sceptically with respect to ethics, and passing up on FANG is a bad career move. Go with this if you can't stand the bay area though. Don't know Citadel. As always, leave if you don't like what you pick. What's your area of expertise, if you don't mind me asking?
Apple still has a good reputation, and if OP was able to get offers from all of these companies already with just their current resume, it's not gonna be a problem for them later when they have Apple on their resume too. Google is definitely slightly sexier on a resume, but since OP already isn't having trouble getting offers, it makes more sense to optimize for TC.
Join Uber. The selfish reason for my advice is that you seem smart and I'd love to have you on my side 😊. The non selfish, from my perspective, reason is that someone smart and driven is going to make a much better impact at Uber. It's got products any human can relate to. So any one can build the mental model of the entire company's business model. That gives you the greatest chance of knowing what's going on in the company. It gives you a chance to see opportunities. It gives you a chance to see missteps and voice your concerns. You get to be part of the company rather than just a small subteam of a subteam of subteam of a team of a division catering to some higher level business goal. Whether or not you make the biggest impact possible, you will develop a better intuition for evaluating tech companies. This will give you a big boost in the tech industry. It sets you up to choose the right next company. It sets you up to guide the next company or Uber itself to be set up for success.
You joined Uber? How do you compare Groupon model with ride-sharing? Lol asking just because someone made analogy between them.
Lol. Back end engineering is more challenging at Uber. Future TC is way better. All hands are more dreamy ✨🔭. Overall I feel more excited about the day here than at Groupon. The team mates were amazing at Groupon as well. The same applies here at Uber.
Come to fb or go to uber. U will learn a lot as new grad.
My view of FB and Uber is that if you want to ship shit code quickly these places are good However I agree that promos are faster. My biased opinion. Want promo - join FB Want quality software - join Goog Want neither - join Uber
Personal experience?
How big are Apple’s refreshers compared to Google’s? Do they also have an annual bonus? Also, what % of people from Stanford get resume-rejected from FB? Wouldn’t it be because they’ve hit their new grad quota?
apple has slightly bigger refreshers but slightly lower cash bonus than Google. Around 50% got resume-rejected and it was precisely because FB sets quota for each school for “equal representation”
Citadel only if you want high risk high reward and are a workaholic
Do you know what teams you will be joining at Google and Apple? As for Citadel, what would career progression look like? Would you have to transition to a non-eng/trader role to get promoted once you are senior?
There are no levels at Citadel. You get higher visibility projects and get paid a lot of money as you progress.
Stanford new grad in Apple here. Damn, I should have negotiated for more RSU. Which org in Apple?
FO at Citadel probably pays more than G. Do you which teams for both?
TBH focusing on TC too much too early in your career could lead to premature optimization. I’m not saying it ain’t important (it absolutely is), but it’s also important to look at the team, potential upside, exposure to technologies, leadership opportunities and how all of that map to your personal and career goals (if you have one at this point)
Agree.
Why waste time & $ on a masters? Ouch
I had never studied CS before Master’s. I was in HW(chip design) for one year after my Bachelors and decided to switch because the TC was shit (95k in Bay Area, Intel)
That's a good reason imo. Good job on the offers.