6 ms·
Ask HN: Internship at Zynga or Hootesuite?
I have to make a choice between taking an internship at Zynga in San Francisco, or Hootesuite in Vancouver. Zynga is appealing to me because its an opportunity to relocate to SF temporarily, but a search on HN returns only negative things. Hootsuite on the other hand seems to be on the uprise.
Does anybody have anything to say about working at Zynga as an intern (or full-time employee) that could be reaffirming to a university student.
- verelo 13y agoI would do Hootesuite. Zynga is not all that, like you said there are not a lot of great things happening there at the moment and Hootesuite is headed up. You should checkout SF, but don't get suckered into thinking its amazing either. There are some great companies but the city itself is expensive and probably not all that livable. Vancouver is a real nice place.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- OceanMan 13y agoIf the jobs were in the same place I would lean towards Hootesuite, but an internship is the perfect chance to checkout SF without overcommitting. I've worked in Vancouver before, but only visited SF. I just can't decide if living in SF is a good enough reason to base my decision off of.
- argonaut 13y agoInternships are highly variable and your experience depends on the team you're on, your projects, your mentors, etc. Assuming you have been offered to join roughly the same team/role at both companies, etc. etc., I would advise you to go with Zynga. Is Zynga as a company on the way down? Probably. But putting aside Zynga's poor product performance, Zynga remains a well-recognized/assessed engineering brand, whereas HootSuite is relative less of a brand. Zynga has plenty of challenging and interesting engineering problems for you to tackle. And as you've said yourself, having worked in Vancouver before, it's an opportunity to check out SF.
- fredsanford 13y agoWhy do you want to associate yourself with the scumbaggery that is Zynga? Do a google search and see why they have the bad rep. Here's a link to get you started: http://vator.tv/news/2013-07-07-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly-of-zynga-under-pincus http://vator.tv/news/2013-07-07-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugl... If you want to see and experience San Francisco, I guess you'll have to risk it. But keep in mind, San Francisco has a pretty high cost of living.
- nrser 13y agoi would go with Zynga. i was employee 7, lived many scumbagggeries during my tenure and am aware of many more after my departure. not much to add to what you'll find online, excpet that it might not have been the right thing or the right ways or for the right reasons but we worked our asses off building that POS, Pincus as much or more than anyone. the first year was a blast and i met tons of really, really good people that I'm still close with. your experience won't be like that. but you'll be in SF. the start-up thing ain't for everyone (if you're interested based on how much money you think you'll have in your bank account after a few years, you probably did your math wrong), but if you want to make a go at it, i would get to SF. Zynga will probably suck, but you'll meet people there and in town and you'll get to experience first-hand the shit-show / circle-jerk / world-changing whirlwind that is "The Valley". you don't have to. anyone can build anything anywhere. but i would.