How did you get through the Google interviews? Genuine question. How did you prepare?
Ask HN: How do I choose between a job offer from Google and a promising startup?
21–30 of 224 posts
Re: Ask HN: How do I choose between a job offer from Google and a promising startup?
#22Those options are totally worthless for new startups, don't care about them. In 4 years chances says they will be still worthless. Specially if the startup didn't go over a funding round yet.
Consider only the job, what would make you happy. Would it be super cool, super distruptive, super inovative? The perspective of the future is worth the risk? Then choose the startup.
But if you are on this for the money, or if you care about risk, choose Google.
Re: Ask HN: How do I choose between a job offer from Google and a promising startup?
#23Those options are totally worthless for new startups, don't care about them. In 4 years chances says they will be still worthless. Specially if the startup didn't go over a funding round yet. Consider only the job, what would make you happy. Would it be super cool, super distruptive, super inovative? The perspective of the future is worth the risk? Then choose the startup. But if you are on this for the money, or if…
And including google in your résumé will probably open doors to thousands of more steady/stable/better-paying startups in the future.
Re: Ask HN: How do I choose between a job offer from Google and a promising startup?
#24It depends on whether you are driven by money or by a need to have fun or to be more in control. If money is your main driver then Google any day. If you want to be in control then the start-up is good but only if you are a very early hire.
If you want to have fun it depends on how the fit is between what you will do at both places, then pick then one that seems most suitable.
Re: Ask HN: How do I choose between a job offer from Google and a promising startup?
#25Disclaimer: I'm a founder of an early stage startup, so I'm biased.
You need to figure out what your goals are. We can't answer for you because we don't know what you want.
If your goal is just money (which is fine, don't be afraid to say this), then definitely go to google. In 10 years you'll be earning 500k per year, and have put away a ton of cash too. Financially, if the startup is successful you_might_ make $10m, but that's unlikely. At google you can guarantee you make $1m.
There are some good reasons to choose a startup:
1) you want the work environment of the startup. Less politics, less optimizing for career advancement, much closer to the customer and the decisions.
2) You want to learn. At a startup, you'll get to do everything. I'm assuming you're an engineer, so you'll get to do backend, frontend, ML, scaling, infra, etc. But you also get to do things like customer support, sales, marketing, etc, which are very valuable skills to learn and understand.
3) You want to do a startup yourself. Seeing how a startup works, and learning the hard lessons of how it doesn't, makes a huge difference if you ever want to start one later.
There are also other good reasons to go to google: you'll get to operate at a scale that a startup wont (that's a plus and a minus), you'll automatically have tons of customers for whatever you build, etc, etc.
Decide on your goals and what to optimize for, and only then can people help you choose.
Re: Ask HN: How do I choose between a job offer from Google and a promising startup?
#26You probably want to say more about your situation. How much experience do you have, what kinds of things are important to you? Are you already wealthy?
Re: Ask HN: How do I choose between a job offer from Google and a promising startup?
#27Those options are totally worthless for new startups, don't care about them. In 4 years chances says they will be still worthless. Specially if the startup didn't go over a funding round yet. Consider only the job, what would make you happy. Would it be super cool, super distruptive, super inovative? The perspective of the future is worth the risk? Then choose the startup. But if you are on this for the money, or if…
Plus early stage stock always gets diluted in further rounds of capital raising ... that 6% will turn into 1% or less and some later hires inevitably will end up with a lot more.
Re: Ask HN: How do I choose between a job offer from Google and a promising startup?
#28Don't be greedy. Google is a gold-plated brand name that will offer tens if not hundreds of individuals smarter than you. 6% options is about average for a co-founder-level tech lead at a very small company. You have to be realistic about your expectations for equity. It is more likely the company gets acquired than goes IPO. If the company gets acquired for $100M, then you may bring home around $4M post tax. What is…
"6% options is about average for a co-founder-level tech lead at a very small company."
Even if true, the fact that there are a lot of gullible young tech leads driving this average down is no good reason that the poster should be equally gullible.
Do the startup thing when it can be your thing. "First employee" is really the worst of all worlds.
Re: Ask HN: How do I choose between a job offer from Google and a promising startup?
#29Advice from someone who had a similar choice and went the startup route: choose the Google option. It will not only open doors for you for all your future jobs, but you can invest the money now and create a nice start for yourself. There will never be any shortage of interesting startups to work for in the future.
> It will not only open doors for you for all your future jobs
Is this true though? I guess it might help with the first contact, but I've heard from x-googlers that they still had to prepare and pass all those whiteboard CS-riddle based interviews again, for next endeavors.
Re: Ask HN: How do I choose between a job offer from Google and a promising startup?
#30Read some articles about the way people get diluted in successful startups. That should change the expectation value calculation. Also, you will have a larger network at Google.