Personally, I care more about what an prospective employee was doing rather than the where. If you are a Software Engineer at Unknown Widgets Corp (UWC) that ha

Personally, I care more about what an prospective employee was doing rather than the where. If you are a Software Engineer at Unknown Widgets Corp (UWC) that has been heading up a small team of engineers to build a complete product, then I'm more interested than if you're a Software Engineer that has been silo'd in a very specific area at Dell. All that being said the company you're at does matter for a couple of reasons. One is there is a small level of bias towards known companies. If two engineers have been doing the same kind of work at Facebook or UWC, I'll probably have a slight unconscious bias towards the engineer from Facebook. Ultimately, I think the best bet is to go where you think you'll be happiest and have the most opportunities to learn. It's good to think about the impact that decisions will have on your long-term career, but the best way to get ahead is to be a stellar engineer. The happier you are in your day-to-day work, the more effort you'll put in to growing as an engineer to meet the challenges. And the more challenges that you're faced with, and the more smart people that surround you, the better opportunity you'll have to grow.