Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Would you rather work for Google or a smaller high growth company?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 83 posts

Re: Ask HN: Would you rather work for Google or a smaller high growth company?

#61

Post by b3b0p »

No reason you can't do both? Start at the one you want now. Transition to the other later. That's what I'm doing. This isn't an either or situation. If you want to take the risk, now is the a best time probably while younger. However, one could argue if you save properly doing the riskier option later might be better. It will depend of course.

The other factor to consider is quality of life. How many hours and what types of stress will the bigco job have versus the younger company? I joined the younger company first and I don't think a single person works 40 hours and the environment is relaxed, the CEO/founders are awesome! The pay is good, but it's not Google levels, but there is opportunity to increase that. We are quite profitable already. I can try for a bigco job another day, in fact any day or not. However, for now, because of my life situation, I chose the smaller company.

Re: Ask HN: Would you rather work for Google or a smaller high growth company?

#62

Post by KaoruAoiShiho »

alfredallan1 wrote: post #36
KaoruAoiShiho wrote: post #26

Rethink "corporate career", absolutely insane, especially for an asian american with the bamboo ceiling. You are harming your own prospects. Do what is in your best interests and go work for a company where you're an exec from the beginning: http://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/...

That somehow seems like a tenuous argument, especially when talking about tech companies, when one looks at examples like Satya Nadella (MS) and Sundar Pichai (Google) who’re both Asian - and 1st generation at that. In the case of FMCG type companies, I’d actually agree with you, but in tech the evidence indicates otherwise.

Feel free to read the article I linked, it addressed your comment.

Re: Ask HN: Would you rather work for Google or a smaller high growth company?

#63

Post by andrewmcwatters »

tranchms wrote: post #40
skybrian wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you a programmer? This isn't how any of the programmers I know judge things. (The college part, anyway.)

Sales engineer. Not a programmer.

That's certainly an enviable position to be in, then.

Re: Ask HN: Would you rather work for Google or a smaller high growth company?

#64

Post by dmoy »

castratikron wrote: post #29
jpm_sd wrote: post #27

Having worked at both, I'd recommend Google for a couple of years, then GTFO. You'll get massively overpaid (save your money!) and you'll learn some useful stuff. But it's a chaotic mess, the employees are spoiled, and you'll never become a real grown-up if you stay there long term. Looks great on your resume, though.

I've interviewed there and my impression was that the average employee was very young, straight out of college. When I was there I was 27 and I felt slightly old.

I'm on a team at Google, am 30s, and the second youngest on the team. Pretty sure.

I definitely got that vibe 5+ years ago, but it's changed.

Re: Ask HN: Would you rather work for Google or a smaller high growth company?

#65

Post by axaxs »

solarkraft wrote: post #59
axaxs wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was given the hotel to stay at, and directions that I didn't need a rental car just to use a taxi or uber/lyft. In my city I've had bad experiences with Uber, so asked the hotel to arrange a taxi for my interview needs. It was a small SUV. The driver was nice, knew the company I was interviewing at, said he does these interviews all day, knew exactly where to go, was waved in by security and knew exactly where to d…

I thought taxi companies were "private driver service"s? Thanks for naming the company.

I may remove it, I'm not quite sure what is and isn't proper to share about an interview process. I will also say, I really did enjoy the interview, and met some of the smartest people I'd ever met in my time there. I def wouldn't let an internet stranger's experience with one part of the interview turn you away. Just my experience.

Re: Ask HN: Would you rather work for Google or a smaller high growth company?

#66

Post by hansjan_ »

pmontra wrote: post #56

I'd go to a consulting company that builds custom software for customers. In this way I'll see many different projects in different industries. But don't go to a company that sends you to work on site for a customer and bury you there. Stay in the main office. After some years of that, consider switching sides and find a company that builds its own products, whatever they are.

One thing to consider is that the quality of the individual projects might well be much lower than working at a company that builds their own niche products.

Re: Ask HN: Would you rather work for Google or a smaller high growth company?

#67

Post by ashwinaj »

lmeyerov wrote: post #11

Counterintuitive to assumptions being made here... you can easily be more of a cog at a 50-5000 employee company than a 5,000+ person company. The medium companies generally have a single true line of business and are focused on tuning & turning that crank, turning $3M/yr to $10-100M/yr. Doing something else makes you a trouble maker, and budgets are watched. The bigger companies will have $100M-100B/yr revenue, so t…

> > and take moonshots to enter new markets big enough to make a dent

If you're talking about FAANG, which I assume you are, that's possibly true. But they aren't the only "big companies". There are tons of big cos which do not do any R&D (Cisco, Oracle and the like) and instead acquire startups to grow. And here's the kicker, they don't care for employee development; so choose wisely.

Re: Ask HN: Would you rather work for Google or a smaller high growth company?

#68

Post by nojvek »

kyrra wrote: post #18
axaxs wrote: post #8

I've interviewed at lot of companies, a lot of which I had no intention of taking. The interview process I think says a lot about a company. I was very put off by the processes of 2 of the big companies, so much so I'd never consider them again as I think it's a bit of an indication of how they operate in general. I found smaller companies tend to have a much more honest conversation with you, and offer a lot of inta…

What is it you don't like about the Google interviewing process? Having been an interviewer at both Google and send mid-sized companies, I feel like the process at Google is a lot more objective and fair for hiring people.

Google interviewing process is a joke. If the interviewer can’t remember the name and is reading the wrong resume you’ve failed.

I pretty much quit half way because I haven’t seen such a disorganized interview process.

They probably get so many engineers wanting to work for them, I think they can afford to let things be broken. Kind of artificially restricting the funnel. Good for them I guess.

Re: Ask HN: Would you rather work for Google or a smaller high growth company?

#69

Post by devereaux »

jiajiang wrote: post #53
devereaux wrote: post #5

smaller company anytime. or bigger. just not for google

What did Google do to you?

Nothing. I just consider them as dangerous as Microsoft in the late 1990s.

I would never have considered doing anything with Microsoft in the late 1990s.

Likewise, I would never consider doing anything with google now.

Post reply on HN