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It appears that the current generation of "hackers" seems very keen to work for a big name company-- Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Google, Facebook. As someone who

It appears that the current generation of "hackers" seems very keen to work for a big name company-- Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Google, Facebook. As someone who has worked for many startups and several of the above named companies, please let me give you a bit of advice: - A big company on your resume has no outside value to your prospects. Seriously. There's not "hey well he worked for amazon so we know he's good" free pass in the future for having Amazon on your resume. There might be a "well, she wasted 3 years at amazon and we all know that's a hellhole so we can get away with abusing her" signal though. (Amazon is a hellhole, I spent 2 years there, in retrospect I would have been better off walking the day it became clear they were using cult methodology.[1]) It took me many years to find my calling. Once I did then my career direction was set. I'll only be working for companies in this industry going forward, because it really is my calling. Take a job that maximizes your creativity and ability to contribute. Don't chase big money or big names. The two almost never go together, anyway. [1] Magical Phrases are a key indicator of cult methodology. Also known as "thought terminating cliches" they are multi-purpose sayings that are used to invoke company ideology and shut down dissent. At amazon there are things like "It's day one!" and the like. Every time I've seen these cult signals at a company it turned out to be a toxic work environment. A good question to ask in interviews is if they company has any slogans all the employees know.

bousaid 9y ago
Let me ask you this, have you worked at any of those large companies?
- alextheparrot 9y ago
  They clearly said they worked at Amazon.
graysonk 9y ago
If it isn't too identifying/personal, then what did you find your calling to be?
solotronics 9y ago
interesting.. I have worked both for startups and large companies. There are tradeoffs to both of course but my favorite so far is the large company I am at. I get to do things at a scale that doesn't exist at startups.
jldugger 9y ago
> Don't chase big money or big names. The two almost never go together, anyway. Do you have evidence on that? Virtually all data I've seen from salary sharing threads, and all compensation discussions I've had with startups suggests the contrary.
koksik202 9y ago
I love it there :) go big or go home
jabits 9y ago
I disagree. I am tech lead at a small company, and when we look for help, permanent (rare) or contractor (usually), big software company experience is a definite plus. At least they have been vetted to some level by others first, and have probably had some decent exposure to current methodologies and practices. I really dislike looking for new help, and this experience provides a valuable data point.
jghn 9y ago
It varies. At my company people seem to see Google on a resume as a positive indicator but I don't hear the same thing for other big name companies.
DenisM 9y ago
Can you elaborate on the whole "day one" thing? Sounds interesting.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
kcorbitt 9y ago
> - A big company on your resume has no outside value to your prospects. I respectfully disagree. Recruiters and hiring managers, and even individual interviewers take me far more seriously after having "Google" on my resume than they did before. It's not enough to land a good job automatically, but most interactions now at least start from the presumption that I'm competent, which makes a job search less frustrating.
- cookiecaper 9y ago
  I haven't worked for AppAmaGooBookSoft, but I know if we got an ex-Googler or similar at many of the places I've worked at, they'd be widely respected/feared by my peers on that virtue alone, and it'd certainly help a lot in the hiring process. I know some well-known niche companies with highly-coveted positions that appear to make new hires almost exclusively from AppAmaGooBookSoft alumni (last time I mentioned this, a user correctly guessed one of the companies I was referring to from just such a vague description). The reality is that most people hate hiring and have no idea whatsoever how to do it well (in the sense of bringing on competent people, not from the HR perspective of minimizing legal liability). Big names, in either education or employment history, help a lot. It's probably easy to underestimate how much they help if you haven't gone without them. I would also venture that ex-BigNameCo is a lot less of a big deal if you work somewhere that's a hotspot for that type of company (Silicon Valley, Seattle). There it may be seen more as a sign of rejection than success, like "Why don't you still work at Google if you were Google material?". But even still, most companies are going to be swayed significantly by a big name on the resume.
dandelany 9y ago
This doesn't really match up with my anectodal experience - the number of recruiter emails I get every week has more than tripled since I started working at Spotify (after working at a number of smaller startups before).
rpedela 9y ago
People generally make more money at big companies especially when you factor in 401k and healthcare benefits. However impact is lower at big companies for the average employee. If you want a job with a large impact and good/great money then profitable medium-sized companies are where it is at. As for name recognition, it always helps. No employer is going to hire someone solely based on where they went to school or where they worked previously. However a well-known school or company can be the deciding factor between two candidates who are otherwise equal. My wife went to Purdue and did her pharmacy residency in Colorado. She later found out that she was competing with three other candidates for one position who were equally as good in the eyes of the residency program, and she won because she graduated from a well-known, top 10 pharmacy school.
edanm 9y ago
This is terrible advice. First, because I think you're factually mistaken - for a lot of people, a big name on your resume is a huge, positive flag. Second, because there are other effects of working at a large company which you're not considering. Most importantly - they're large! That means you're going to interact with a huge amount of people. In 3 years at a BigCo, you'll likely have contacts not only in various departments, but probably in several other companies as well, both because of work with outside companies, and because of interacting with employees who left. Not to mention, you can learn a lot about the industry that you might not necessarily be exposed to while at a small startup - via interactions with those outside companies (customers, partners, etc). You can also work on seriously big things, which you won't be working on at a startup, for example. None of this is to say that working at a BigCo is the right move. I actually tend to think the opposite, depending on various factors. But it's definitely not an all-downsides proposition.
argc 9y ago
My experience is completely different from yours in regards to every single point you make. Working at a big company (amazon) has increased my salary significantly, made me better technically, and noticeably made it easier for me to find a job elsewhere afterwards (this could be because my technical skill were better afterwards, and I had more experience). Additionally, I actually loved my team at Amazon. My manager was incredibly empathetic and caring, far more than any managers I have had at smaller companies before. I just wanted to provide a different perspective, and show that generalizing about companies, especially large ones, is a bad idea and often grossly incorrect. Your experience and the people you talked to (likely) represent a very small part of the whole company.
- cheeze 9y ago
  I had a similar experience there. There were parts of the company that seemed like they sucked, but my experience was only positive and put me in a position to learn a ton from strong engineers while building my skills up and making a good amount of money. When I started, I made less than some of my friends who chose startups, but two years out of college I was making more than almost anybody I knew. I might not have worked on my passion in specific there, but I had a great time, learned a ton, and IMO set myself up for a great trajectory in my career. Like most other large companies, YMMV depending on where you're at.
gaius 9y ago
Seriously. There's not "hey well he worked for amazon so we know he's good" free pass in the future for having Amazon on your resume. The point of a CV is to get you an interview. A person who graduated from an Ivy/Russell, did a year or two at Google and a similar spell at Goldman Sachs, will be able to get an interview anywhere, for the rest of their lives. They probably won't get an easier ride in the interview, it may even be harder as the interviewer's egos insist that they best one of the "elite", but they will never need to worry about passing a screen.
hdkmraf 9y ago
I used to be contacted by Amazon a lot around 4 years ago, to work with their data science team. At the time I was busy helping build up a startup (and a data science team), so always turned them down, I always put my people first. The startup turned out to be quite profitable, they are up and kicking nowadays, I am very proud of my time with them. Nowadays I am looking for a new permanent position (have been freelancing for a couple of years). My wife happens to be a headhunter and knows how most HR and internal recruitment teams think and work. She tells me with Amazon in my CV many more doors would open. I don't regret turning them down, I know for sure had I accepted to work with them I would have never met my wife, who brings me more joy than any job would ever do... But I can't help to wonder...
jarsin 9y ago
My favorite ideology used to shutdown dissent is the No Assholes Allowed rule. Me: "Hey how come you guys don't use source control?" Manager: "Are you being an asshole?"
corporateslave3 9y ago
I think its already been iterated on by other commenters, but almost all of this advice is wrong. Name brands play a huge roll in careers, even in programming ones. If you have worked a long career and havent worked at a big name company, thats a huge negative signal.
AndrewKemendo 9y ago
It appears that the current generation of "hackers" seems very keen to work for a big name company-- Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Google, Facebook Right, because BY FAR they are making the most progress, in the most promising technologies today, and they pay egregiously well.

bousaid 9y ago

Let me ask you this, have you worked at any of those large companies?

alextheparrot 9y ago
They clearly said they worked at Amazon.

graysonk 9y ago

If it isn't too identifying/personal, then what did you find your calling to be?

solotronics 9y ago

interesting.. I have worked both for startups and large companies. There are tradeoffs to both of course but my favorite so far is the large company I am at. I get to do things at a scale that doesn't exist at startups.

jldugger 9y ago

> Don't chase big money or big names. The two almost never go together, anyway. Do you have evidence on that? Virtually all data I've seen from salary sharing threads, and all compensation discussions I've had with startups suggests the contrary.

koksik202 9y ago

I love it there :) go big or go home

jabits 9y ago

I disagree. I am tech lead at a small company, and when we look for help, permanent (rare) or contractor (usually), big software company experience is a definite plus. At least they have been vetted to some level by others first, and have probably had some decent exposure to current methodologies and practices. I really dislike looking for new help, and this experience provides a valuable data point.

jghn 9y ago

It varies. At my company people seem to see Google on a resume as a positive indicator but I don't hear the same thing for other big name companies.

DenisM 9y ago

Can you elaborate on the whole "day one" thing? Sounds interesting.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

kcorbitt 9y ago

> - A big company on your resume has no outside value to your prospects. I respectfully disagree. Recruiters and hiring managers, and even individual interviewers take me far more seriously after having "Google" on my resume than they did before. It's not enough to land a good job automatically, but most interactions now at least start from the presumption that I'm competent, which makes a job search less frustrating.

cookiecaper 9y ago
I haven't worked for AppAmaGooBookSoft, but I know if we got an ex-Googler or similar at many of the places I've worked at, they'd be widely respected/feared by my peers on that virtue alone, and it'd certainly help a lot in the hiring process. I know some well-known niche companies with highly-coveted positions that appear to make new hires almost exclusively from AppAmaGooBookSoft alumni (last time I mentioned this, a user correctly guessed one of the companies I was referring to from just such a vague description). The reality is that most people hate hiring and have no idea whatsoever how to do it well (in the sense of bringing on competent people, not from the HR perspective of minimizing legal liability). Big names, in either education or employment history, help a lot. It's probably easy to underestimate how much they help if you haven't gone without them. I would also venture that ex-BigNameCo is a lot less of a big deal if you work somewhere that's a hotspot for that type of company (Silicon Valley, Seattle). There it may be seen more as a sign of rejection than success, like "Why don't you still work at Google if you were Google material?". But even still, most companies are going to be swayed significantly by a big name on the resume.

dandelany 9y ago

This doesn't really match up with my anectodal experience - the number of recruiter emails I get every week has more than tripled since I started working at Spotify (after working at a number of smaller startups before).

rpedela 9y ago

People generally make more money at big companies especially when you factor in 401k and healthcare benefits. However impact is lower at big companies for the average employee. If you want a job with a large impact and good/great money then profitable medium-sized companies are where it is at. As for name recognition, it always helps. No employer is going to hire someone solely based on where they went to school or where they worked previously. However a well-known school or company can be the deciding factor between two candidates who are otherwise equal. My wife went to Purdue and did her pharmacy residency in Colorado. She later found out that she was competing with three other candidates for one position who were equally as good in the eyes of the residency program, and she won because she graduated from a well-known, top 10 pharmacy school.

edanm 9y ago

This is terrible advice. First, because I think you're factually mistaken - for a lot of people, a big name on your resume is a huge, positive flag. Second, because there are other effects of working at a large company which you're not considering. Most importantly - they're large! That means you're going to interact with a huge amount of people. In 3 years at a BigCo, you'll likely have contacts not only in various departments, but probably in several other companies as well, both because of work with outside companies, and because of interacting with employees who left. Not to mention, you can learn a lot about the industry that you might not necessarily be exposed to while at a small startup - via interactions with those outside companies (customers, partners, etc). You can also work on seriously big things, which you won't be working on at a startup, for example. None of this is to say that working at a BigCo is the right move. I actually tend to think the opposite, depending on various factors. But it's definitely not an all-downsides proposition.

argc 9y ago

My experience is completely different from yours in regards to every single point you make. Working at a big company (amazon) has increased my salary significantly, made me better technically, and noticeably made it easier for me to find a job elsewhere afterwards (this could be because my technical skill were better afterwards, and I had more experience). Additionally, I actually loved my team at Amazon. My manager was incredibly empathetic and caring, far more than any managers I have had at smaller companies before. I just wanted to provide a different perspective, and show that generalizing about companies, especially large ones, is a bad idea and often grossly incorrect. Your experience and the people you talked to (likely) represent a very small part of the whole company.

cheeze 9y ago
I had a similar experience there. There were parts of the company that seemed like they sucked, but my experience was only positive and put me in a position to learn a ton from strong engineers while building my skills up and making a good amount of money. When I started, I made less than some of my friends who chose startups, but two years out of college I was making more than almost anybody I knew. I might not have worked on my passion in specific there, but I had a great time, learned a ton, and IMO set myself up for a great trajectory in my career. Like most other large companies, YMMV depending on where you're at.

gaius 9y ago

Seriously. There's not "hey well he worked for amazon so we know he's good" free pass in the future for having Amazon on your resume. The point of a CV is to get you an interview. A person who graduated from an Ivy/Russell, did a year or two at Google and a similar spell at Goldman Sachs, will be able to get an interview anywhere, for the rest of their lives. They probably won't get an easier ride in the interview, it may even be harder as the interviewer's egos insist that they best one of the "elite", but they will never need to worry about passing a screen.

hdkmraf 9y ago

I used to be contacted by Amazon a lot around 4 years ago, to work with their data science team. At the time I was busy helping build up a startup (and a data science team), so always turned them down, I always put my people first. The startup turned out to be quite profitable, they are up and kicking nowadays, I am very proud of my time with them. Nowadays I am looking for a new permanent position (have been freelancing for a couple of years). My wife happens to be a headhunter and knows how most HR and internal recruitment teams think and work. She tells me with Amazon in my CV many more doors would open. I don't regret turning them down, I know for sure had I accepted to work with them I would have never met my wife, who brings me more joy than any job would ever do... But I can't help to wonder...

jarsin 9y ago

My favorite ideology used to shutdown dissent is the No Assholes Allowed rule. Me: "Hey how come you guys don't use source control?" Manager: "Are you being an asshole?"

corporateslave3 9y ago

I think its already been iterated on by other commenters, but almost all of this advice is wrong. Name brands play a huge roll in careers, even in programming ones. If you have worked a long career and havent worked at a big name company, thats a huge negative signal.

AndrewKemendo 9y ago

It appears that the current generation of "hackers" seems very keen to work for a big name company-- Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Google, Facebook Right, because BY FAR they are making the most progress, in the most promising technologies today, and they pay egregiously well.