Ask HN: Palantir or Facebook?

Palantir is a much smaller company (in particular, the team I would be joining is tiny) so I feel like I'd have a much larger impact on the product itself, while Facebook is one of the most used things on the internet. It seems like the major difference is in the difference between a consumer product and an enterprise product, but I would be happy working in either area.

I'm finding it very difficult to decide, so I'm thinking about just going for whichever one will be higher paying, post negotiation. Is this dumb?

Thanks for reading!

EDIT: Both positions are in software engineering, and offers seem mostly comparable in terms of perks and benefits.

Ask yourself:

- with which of the companies (mission and strategy, as well as customers) can you identify yourself best?

- where do you see yourself having a more pleasent work environment in regards to the people you would be working with and the working culture/environment?

- what are your future career targets and which opportunity might increase the probability to reach them? what is the potential for the role?

- what might be the goals, and can you identify with them as well as add value, of your direct reports?

Palantir looks hip but the work they do is very boring on the Forward-Deployed engineer side — which, being a position in New York, sounds like what you're gonna be doing.

PS I interviewed with both these companies very recently.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/08/14/agent-o...

Palantir is deeply entrenched in the surveillance state. Though they may come at you with a decent offer, I believe it is ethically impermissible to use my skills in order to contribute to the deprivation of the human rights of others across the world.

I do not have much positive to say about Facebook either, except that the bulk of their revenue does not come from three letter agencies. And they have in the past and will probably continue in the future to solve some interesting challenges in scalability.