[et-al]

As someone who used to work for a not-so-technical large consulting firm, it pains me to hear newcomers wanting to work for the "Big 4" in tech.

The reason why accounting, banking, consulting need their Big Four / Big Three is because it's hard to measure what their people actually do, so they rely on joining a big firm to reflect their worth.

In software engineering, you should be able to describe to someone in tangible terms what you've worked on in the past 3-6 months and what value it's brought to the company (and if you can't, start writing that down because you should always be ready to discuss that with recruiters or your boss when you want a raise). Because of that, we don't need the prestige of a namebrand company when we jump to the next job.

You should ask yourself why you'd want to join a Big 4 and if it's actually necessary. If it's for potential entrepreneurial connections, I can assure you that there are plenty of startup founders that are doing fine without the Google name. If it's for technical challenges, all companies have their own issues. You may not be working at Google scale, but trust me even with 5000 customers, there are still scaling problems that need to be solved for that particular case. And if you just want to work with smart people, they're everywhere. The company I work at was bought an East Coast company (outside SV!) and their engineering team are doing infrastructure things heaps better than we were.

This is an extremely humbling field and regardless of where you work, there's always something to be learned.

[tedmiston]

As a counterpoint, the prestige of the big 4 can be helpful going from a software engineer to a technical co-founder role. Investors like seeing external validation with that kind of weight.

[cookiecaper]

While I can't speak about investors, I personally know of one highly-respected niche company that seriously favors candidates who have one of the "big 4" on their resume (AmaMagaGooBookSoft or whatever they're calling it these days). Ironically enough, a widely-recognized position at a major tech company unfortunately can be a stepping stone that gets you in the door at a place you actually want to work long-term. People are generally really bad at hiring.

It's kind of funny that a position at one of those companies is now the new mark of prestige instead of a college degree or something. Shows how far the university has fallen.

[__derek__]

> Shows how far the university has fallen.

Does it? Unless things have changed, graduates of elite universities are disproportionately represented at the AppAmaGooBookSoft companies. It seems more accurate to say that those companies play a similar role to HBS and Yale Law.

[uep]

>While I can't speak about investors, I personally know of one highly-respected niche company that seriously favors candidates who have one of the "big 4" on their resume (AmaMagaGooBookSoft or whatever they're calling it these days).

Is it Valve?

[raverbashing]

I wonder why, since Valve's way of working is very different from the way big companies traditionally work

[cookiecaper]

... yes, lol.

[nl]

When was that ever the case?

Even back before Google existed, having MS on your resume would open doors at software companies.

Google has always been a gold star.

But it isn't instead of universities, it is as well as. Stanford/MIT/etc will have the same effect.

[cookiecaper]

The weird thing is not that working at big-name companies is impressive, it's that it's essentially a pre-requisite for some employers. The promise of higher education is that it will prepare you to take the best jobs in the industry. It's supposed to be the primary credential. That something is becoming the critical factor in employment means that universities are losing and/or have lost their status as the baseline qualification.

Maybe it shows how little I know, but I think Valve and other companies who do this are doing themselves a disservice by basically using Google's recruiting department as a passthrough (and, as an autodidact programmer, I feel essentially the same about people who put it all on educational pedigree -- this isn't an endorsement of the baseline credential, just an acknowledgement that what constitutes it is shifting). It feels like an admission that they don't know how to hire, so they're effectively offloading that responsibility onto companies whom they believe have thorough vetting processes.

[et-al]

Yeah, I agree and briefly hinted at that with entrepreneurial connections. It's the same thing as going to a prestigious school. I'm not going to discredit the benefits; it just means you gotta hustle harder if you didn't get in.

Also the Big 4 are changing every few years. Is Twitter still considered part of that group?

[what_ever]

Was Twitter ever part of that group? I thought it was Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Amazon.

[hanoz]

Last time I heard the expression it was Netscape, Oracle, IBM and Sun (vs Microsoft). I wonder how the OP would feel about working for one of them now.

[tedmiston]

+ Apple

[maxwell]

Everyone always says four, yet swap Apple and Microsoft... This is apparently for historical reasons—there's always been a "big four" since the Great War. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Four

It's clearly currently five. In order of market cap: Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon. Note that these are now the five biggest publicly traded companies in the world, not merely in "tech" (a clearly archaic categorization).

[flexie]

I was about to write that you are wrong because how could Facebook and Amazon be on that list. But you are right. All oil and gas, conglomerates, pharmaceutical, financial services, electronics, retail, commodities, telecommunication, utility and automotive companies that crowded the list until recently have been displaced by IT companies. It is truly stunning.

[nl]

The reason people typically don't include Apple is because they are diversified out of software, whereas Google/FB/Amazon/MS are all software tech companies.

This isn't exactly a strong line though, since all are at least diversified into things outside software.

Nevertheless, that was the original reasoning.

[voltagex_]

The other side of that is my experience: as a developer for a non-tech company, you're in a cost centre, constantly fighting for funding and (if you want it) recognition.

[solipsism]

You forgot one: for a steady and very large salary.

[Trundle]

Is the benefit of big four not high salary and great benefits? Google consistently ranks as the top company to work for.

[et-al]

Salaries are definitely high in the big companies, but compensation isn't everything. And rankings for best workplaces don't include smaller companies who don't have time to apply for those rankings.

Your points are valid, but they're not the complete picture. Otherwise we'd all be clamoring for jobs at Googlezonsoft, but as sentiment shows in this thread; that's not the case.

My main point was to emphasize that it's possible to find job satisfaction outside of the big companies and that one has to question and determine if a big company would be a good fit, or is it purely an ego thing.