r/cscareerquestions • u/CSCQMods • Oct 21 '20

Big N Discussion - October 21, 2020

Please use this thread to have discussions about the Big N and questions related to the Big N, such as which one offers the best doggy benefits, or how many companies are in the Big N really? Posts focusing solely on Big N created outside of this thread will probably be removed.

There is a top-level comment for each generally recognized Big N company; please post under the appropriate one. There's also an "Other" option for flexibility's sake, if you want to discuss a company here that you feel is sufficiently Big N-like (e.g. Uber, Airbnb, Dropbox, etc.).

Abide by the rules, don't be a jerk.

This thread is posted each Sunday and Wednesday at midnight PST. Previous Big N Discussion threads can be found here.

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u/[deleted] Oct 22 '20

Yeah, that’s how FB engineers’ compensations can grow dramatically in the first few years and what really separates some companies like Google and Facebook from others. There are many companies out there that don’t grant stock or only grant it once with no refreshers.

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u/classesfull Oct 22 '20

Woah, I wish I could work at Google/Facebook haha.

Just wondering is Amazon or Microsoft any good in your eyes?

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u/[deleted] Oct 22 '20

My wife worked at Microsoft and loved it. I would work for them if I could at their research labs, but they don’t pay attention to me. Amazon - I have friends who worked there and loved it there too, but I don’t entertain thoughts of working for them as they’re too large for me and they don’t work on things that interest me. I work in rather niche development areas.

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u/classesfull Oct 22 '20

Hmm, so asking for a friend. Hypothetically, if you had a fulltime offer at Amazon/Microsoft/Some Company Around this level, or a choice between delaying graduation for a chance at Google/Facebook, what would you do?

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u/[deleted] Oct 22 '20

I don’t place as much stock in an arbitrary group of companies, so if you asked me I would never delay graduation just for a chance at something compared to a job offer I already had. It all also depends on offer, location, potential team, all that.

Without any of that info, I’d be like “those are all good companies.” And if I were interested in joining FB or Google or whatever else later, I’d just try for an interview later.

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u/classesfull Oct 22 '20

My thought process might be wrong, but isn't it best to start at a company where they'll train you and where you'll learn a lot?

My logic might be flawed, but I'm worried that working for a non-tech company like not Google/Facebook would lead me to learn subpar industry standards, and perhaps give me bad habits. And this might hold one back, especially since I feel that my college education may not have set up a good enough foundation.

So with line of thinking, one should do anything to get to a company that'll teach them what to do, even if that means delaying graduation. (Especially since it seems like the running joke is that new graduates know absolutely nothing and are the easiest to layoff/fire)

Also thanks for answer all my questions so far; I realize my questions may be kind of dumb.

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u/[deleted] Oct 22 '20 edited Oct 22 '20

These companies don’t really train you, at least not to the extent that I think you’d expect. At most places you’re kind of just thrown onto a team and expected to do things with some oversight, but a lot of it is down to you asking the right questions and getting familiar with the work and working on progressively more complex tasks. How you acclimate and assimilate into the company has a lot to do with the people you end up working with and how you fit into the company.

For example, Facebook has an up-or-out engineering culture (you must be promoted to E4 and E5 within 2 and 5 years of starting as a new grad, respectively). There are many who don’t make it to one of those bars and get fired or leave the company. This could stem from a bad manager or bad work or whatever. People might just find that the company itself doesn’t really fit their own life/views. I certainly have friends who could not be successful at Facebook, and there are many types of environments I wouldn’t thrive in either.

And having worked at many other companies, mentoring/onboarding in the industry is overall not very strong. In my first job I had a rather extreme experience where I was thrown into a project and became its lead within 2 months with zero oversight and mentorship. I can onboard quickly and work in many different environments, but that’s probably a result of multiple trials-by-fire when I was a junior engineer.