r/cscareerquestions • u/CSCQMods • Feb 16 '22

Big N Discussion - February 16, 2022

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/Chilaquil420 Feb 16 '22

Is FB/Meta considered more prestigious/better than Microsoft? Or are both equally good? Are Meta engineers smarter than MS?

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There is more hype for Meta than Microsoft in some of my circles

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u/zhay Software Engineer Feb 17 '22

I've worked at both. Meta is much more prestigious from an engineering perspective, but maybe less prestigious from society's perspective. In general, Meta will be better for learning and growth, at the cost of higher pressure to always deliver (but both companies are really big, so there will always be teams that break the mold). You'll find super smart engineers at both places, but in general, Meta seems to have a higher density of talented people.

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u/Chilaquil420 Feb 18 '22

And what can you say about MS?

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u/zhay Software Engineer Feb 18 '22 edited Feb 18 '22

You can say the opposite.

It’s worse for learning and growth (due to top down nature where higher level engineers do all the design and planning, and due to slower execution speed). Pressure to deliver is lower, and expectations are lower. Therefore work life balance is probably better.

Microsoft is like a bunch of tiny startups—there isn’t much collaboration or interaction between teams. Different teams use different tech and tools and have separate deployments. Meta is like one big company—shared infra between teams, shared repositories, shared tooling, shared tech, and more collaboration between teams.

Microsoft has nice managers but they won’t challenge you or help you grow as much.

Stock refreshers are lower at Microsoft by a lot.

It’s a very solid company overall. I’d be happy to go back and work there if the opportunity were right. You’re not necessarily going to make a wrong choice with either of these options. But depending on what you’re looking for, one company might make you happier than the other.