Between the the two groups of companies you list, I'd take Google in a heartbeat. The thing that nobody here is saying is this: at Google, you are in a whole ne

Between the the two groups of companies you list, I'd take Google in a heartbeat. The thing that nobody here is saying is this: at Google, you are in a whole new system where internal moves are relatively easy. The first few years you'll probably have to get tenure (L5), but once you have that, it is very easy to make internal moves. Want to work on search? Start looking at those job boards. Want to do research? GoogleAI is hiring. Want to work on self driving? Google's holding company also owns Waymo. On the other hand, if you end up on a bad team at a failing startup or midsize, you have to go through the entire interview process all over again. Going through that process can be a good experience, but eventually it gets old and you might be ready to spend 5 - 10 years at one gig making multiple year-long projects come to fruition. That's hard to do at a startup and even at midsize companies. It is much easier at FAANG and particularly Google. Full disclosure: I recently accepted an offer at Google.