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Are Unicorns like Uber and Palantir still considered prestigious? How about newer companies like Affirm and Blend? How do older companies like Amazon and Microsoft stack up?
If you're joining a company because it's prestigious and looks good on a resume, instead of because you see the opportunity to do good work and learn from people better than you, you aren't a hacker--you're just some wannabe seeking affirmation.
Well, I never heard of Affirm as a tech company to work at, but now I thank you're talking about the company offering loans at high interest rates for people buying stuff they can't afford. I'm not sure what's so prestigious about a humdrum finance company.
Amazon and Microsoft, everybody has heard of, and at least they require people with a pulse. They know how to ship good software, and they got real shiznit going down, and that counts for a lot. Depends on your role.
High hiring bar + works on cool stuff + high salary + company visibility is the general formula here.
If you're joining a company because it's prestigious and looks good on a resume, instead of because you see the opportunity to do good work and learn from people better than you, you aren't a hacker--you're just some wannabe seeking affirmation.
I picked a job a few years back based on "it'll look good on my CV" -- turned out to be the worst decision I ever made. That's not to say every job will end as badly as that did, but I realised quite early on that I just wasn't a good fit for the company, and they wanted a "yes-man" to say "you're doing everything right", not an engineer who'd say "this is good, but we can improve by..."
Picked my last job based on the number of people I had at the company, the offer and the general "vibe". Best decision I ever made.
Don't be afraid to interview at a couple of companies then choose between them. Don't pick solely on "this is the highest offer" -- pick somewhere that feels like it'll be good for you.
And don't worry about prestige. About the only thing that'll put employers off are long gaps in your work history that you can't explain. But that's not a problem you're likely to have with a grad position :)