[matte_black]

I find the only people whose eyes go wide almost popping out of their head are younger people just entering the workforce whom may have never met someone who works at a big company whose products they use everyday (or recruiters I guess). It's like you're a celebrity to them. Hell, some of these kids used to get pumped when I was telling them I was merely heading to some Apple conference or Google I/O.

No one with experience in the industry gives two shits even if you worked at Facebook, Google and Apple, because they have no illusions about what it means to work there or what it must say about you.

[wskinner]

Distance makes things appear shinier than they are. It's not just new-to-tech people who find these companies prestigious. It's anyone who is sufficiently far from the industry, and especially people who are in other status-oriented professions. For example, bankers and lawyers, who are themselves in high-status professions and at high-status firms within their profession, find G/FB/AAPL very prestigious.

It's a credential, and like all credentials, if you can precisely measure the thing the credential is certifying, the credential loses its value. Having worked at these companies or at least worked with people who have, many of us feel the credential is not useful. We can personally evaluate each other's skills. But from outside of Silicon Valley, the credential appears, and probably actually is, useful.

[audiodude]

I think it's a California thing. No one in SF or the Bay Area gives a shit about my job title. When I go back East to MA? Everyone's eyes are popping.

[matte_black]

They don't know. Over on the east coast some of those far away tech companies sound exotic and prestigious.

[dandr01d]

Speak for yourself. I would definitely give a shit if someone who applied to my theoretical company worked at a top-tier company.

[pathseeker]

Do so at your own peril. Google is approaching 100,000 employees. The vast majority do boring data pipelines for CRUD apps.

Top-tier company != top-tier employees.

[aje403]

You're forgetting they all read all the way through cracking the code interview, the most difficult math book in history.

[briansteffens]

Coding interview books: how to use bit fields to save a marginal amount of memory while making your algorithm work only with values of n <= 64.

[captain_perl]

That's both funny and true. ValueClick hired some celebrity nerds to write a new ad platform, and I hear it supported exactly 32 advertisers. :)

[Fins]

Which only says that they are good at solving artificial puzzles, but nothing about whether they are good developers or generally intelligent.

[mandeepj]

> the most difficult math book in history

It is not a math book rather more of a puzzle book. On a side note - it's full of mistakes (your experience may vary though)

If you like to see difficult math then please try to apply for a self-driving car engineer's job.

[andbberger]

whoosh

Pretty sure the prize for 'most difficult math book in history' goes to Dummit and Foote's ponderous tome, Abstract Algebra.

[aje403]

If you are suggesting deep learning involves difficult math then I have just had a stroke

Besides, cracking the code interview is definitely the hardest. Just check out the amazon reviews

[stuffedBelly]

i like your sarcasm :D.

[cbanek]

Even with a top-tier company, recruiting top-tier employees, doesn't implie top-tier-interesting-work. I do think many of the top-tier companies do have good people, because they can pay for them, but it almost seems like it's a defensive move to keep talent away from other companies, rather than utilizing that talent to the utmost.

[southphillyman]

>Top-tier company != top-tier employees.

True, but it typically means top-tier interviewer...which would make it more difficult to discover areas where they are lacking.

[matte_black]

Sounds great but not a good idea in practice. A company should always be designed in a way that it works smoothly even with people of modest backgrounds. Especially as it grows larger.

Otherwise your "top tier" employees become liabilities, and it becomes unsustainable to rely purely on everyone being a top player. Basically you want a company that can still operate effectively even if everyone was a dumbass.

[dawnerd]

I'd kinda see it as a semi-red flag. Why would they leave a top-tier company to work for me? Why did they quit? Etc.