[gnomeduck]

Advice from someone who had a similar choice and went the startup route: choose the Google option. It will not only open doors for you for all your future jobs, but you can invest the money now and create a nice start for yourself.

There will never be any shortage of interesting startups to work for in the future.

[jhillyerd]

Google is also a very good learning opportunity; there is lots of training available to employees, you will be working with very talented people, and will get to see how the planet-scale dogfood is made first hand.

[zerr]

I've heard that many things are arcane in-house proprietary stuff, not easily transferable knowledge/experience.

[modeless]

Google's CI system is proprietary, but learning how a CI system should work is valuable. Google's code review system is proprietary, but learning how code review should work is valuable. Repeat for every proprietary system Google has.

When I left Google for a startup, all the tools I took for granted didn't exist. But because I knew how things could and should work, I was able to apply open source and commercially available tools to improve software development practices at my new employer.

[mav3rick]

That is not true. No matter the shit Google gets on HN it's a tremendous place to learn and grow. All the large scale systems you see now were first invented at Google and now are replicated at Facebook etc.. The code reviews alone will make you a better programmer and working with senior people will give you an appreciation for designing complex systems. It's a great place to work IMO.

[refulgentis]

Put another way, you'll learn much more about how to identify and work with talented people on difficult projects at Google than at a startup. At a startup you're worried about how you'll pack a bologna sandwich for lunch tomorrow, at Google you're a sous chef for a 5 star banquet hall in NYC.

[dmarlow]

I think it goes both ways. There are plenty mundane things at BigCo for people to do.

[refulgentis]

I've done both extremes, and you're absolutely right, but the point still stands no matter how many cases we can find that might hint at the opposite :)

[Mr_P]

This used to be the case, but these days many fundamental Google tools are open.

Borg is Kubernetes, flume is externally available as Google Cloud Dataflow (it's basically Apache Beam), Tensorflow is open source, many of Google's internal java libraries and tools are available externally (Guava, Guice, Dagger), and absl (c++ common libraries) are also available externally.

More importantly, assuming you land on a team with strong software engineering culture (this is likely, but admittedly not guaranteed, even at Google), the general skills you pick up for software design, planning, testing, etc. are transferable anywhere.

That said, all of this applies mostly to software engineers. If you're applying for an SRE position, then I've heard the experience is less transferable, but it's not something I could comment on first hand.

[skj]

Borg is not very much like kubernetes from the config or run side. Maybe underlying both are containers, but it's really pretty different.

[mk89]

Flume is not comparable to Google cloud dataflow nor beam. But I understand your point.

[daveFNbuck]

That's true about many of the specific tools you learn, but you also learn a lot of generic development skills that no one will take the time to teach you at a startup.

[tastyham]

> arcane in-house proprietary stuff

Just like any other successful company that does something interesting and has been around more than a couple of years.

[cynicalkane]

Google's in-house tools are generally stronger than the publicly available stuff across the board. Ex-Googlers are more often frustrated not by a lack of ability with those tools, but knowing what they can't do with them.

Also, Google's best tools are increasingly open-source.

[pickgoogle]

> you will be working with very talented people

Do you think they are more talented than other companies, like, say, Amazon?

[Youden]

Really, for the most part, the talent goes to the best places to work. That's subjective but the major factors for most people are mission (e.g. charity good, privacy violation bad), working environment and compensation.

Amazon isn't really particularly good at any of these, so you'll tend to find more talent at places that do better. Facebook and Google both have better compensation and from what I've heard from friends (who've also had experience with Amazon), both also have a better working environment.

[dmarlow]

Maybe a higher ratio overall?

[pickgoogle]

I see. Do you think people at Amazon are inferior?

[dang]

The previous account you created to post these is one that we ended up having to ban for trolling.

We've banned this account. Please stop creating accounts to do this, or we'll ban your main account as well.

[rdlecler1]

I couldn’t agree more—I would add live below your means because you don’t want to get used to that lifestyle/level of income where it would be impossible to step back later if you wanted.

[cabalamat]

> I would add live below your means

This is good advice in general

[ibejoeb]

>impossible to step back later

Life finds a way. -2008 joeb

(Being real, this is good advice. Find the lowest-cost digs you can get; stay flexible, lease; don't get involved with securities you can't unload. Remember that you're on a 5-year plan.)

[manquer]

It really depends on kind of person OP is, Personally I never want to work at any large corporation especially Google, the benefits do not outweigh the drawbacks for me.

Apart from what others mentioned in the thread In the startup choice the biggest benefit not going the Google for me is that I choose to work in a domain(by choosing the startup) where I am passionate about, slim chance of it happening in a large organization.

OP has to understand what he gets and does not get at both outside of pure comp and then figure out how much of value they are to him

[humbledrone]

IMO one of the best things about working for Google is that it's so easy to move between teams to e.g. find the domain you want to work in.

While it's true that you may not have many options for your first team (unless you are already a domain expert, in which case you may get funneled into your domain), if you are performing well for your current team, it is extremely easy to move around.

I say this a a Googler who was originally slotted into a team that was fun but not what I was really into. I swapped teams a couple of times and found something much better for me.

[bitL]

> easy to move

You need to stay ~12 months in your initial team; if your performance rating is bad (non-trivial chance of that after 1st year), no other team would ever touch you and you'll be slowly driven out (rare exceptions happen). 18 months used to be average stay of a Googler inside company. If you are out of luck with your team/boss, you are done internally, and this happened to many clever developers. You'd also have to get used to usual corporate CYA, internal politics and all the fun that comes along, with many developers barely doing anything but excelling in those "soft" metrics. Smaller chance of that in a startup with strong pre-selection, a mission and personal relationships, if it has solid funding.

[User23]

Add to this the tendency to promote quality engineers to mediocre or outright bad managers. I witnessed a bad manager destroy the Google careers of virtually every engineer on his team.

Still, I would strongly recommend accepting the offer. Despite the drawbacks it's a great learning experience.

[marssaxman]

So easy relative to what, I wonder? I was slotted into a team which was neither fun nor anything I am into, and never managed to transfer. They said my manager wouldn't be able to block me from transferring, but he did so anyway, and I ended up leaving Google. There was nothing about the process which felt like it was any easier or less political than what I've seen at other megacorporations.

[humbledrone]

Well, easy relative to a startup which has just one engineering role (wear all the hats). In the startup world, changing roles generally means going through the interview process at a new company, starting over on seniority, vesting schedules, etc.

I'm sorry to hear about your bad experience at Google. It is a large company, so I don't doubt that there are dusty corners with bad management. But I've seen a pretty broad cross-section of the company and find most of it to be quite great in terms of mobility.

[restlessdesign]

Interesting that you say "never" vs. "never again"…

[alistproducer2]

I never had such an option but I agree. I picked a big company and after a couple years was able to leave in a much better place, financially, than I went in.

[zerr]

> It will not only open doors for you for all your future jobs

Is this true though? I guess it might help with the first contact, but I've heard from x-googlers that they still had to prepare and pass all those whiteboard CS-riddle based interviews again, for next endeavors.

[daveFNbuck]

Opening the door means you get the interview, not that you automatically get the job. It can also mean that you get the benefit of the doubt when your interview doesn't go as well as you had hoped.

For my current job, I was able to use my big company experience and contacts to skip the phone screen at least.

[coolwhhip]

Sample size of one: my company tends to ding candidates from Google if they have any whiff of the kind of status- or compensation-driven thinking displayed in this comment section. Can sometimes indicate limited independent thinking and low concern for others. Definitely can close doors.

[mav3rick]

What's compensation driven thinking ? There's a difference between only caring about money vs asking for what you deem fair. Startups always abuse the naivete of new grads and low ball them by saying they are working for a grander cause. That is BS too.

[austhrow743]

Small town personal tax agencies aren't financially competitive with Deloitte either. Doesn't make them abusive if Deloitte tier accountants choose to work for them.

Every industry has small low income employers and big titans with deep pockets. The big take most of the high quality talent by offering high salaries, and the small compete for the scraps with niche offerings.

Only in software does being the former seem to be some moral crime. Like if you're not as good as a place to work at as google you're meant to put "we're fairly shit. B- tier candidates at best please" on your hiring page.

[bradleyjg]

That's true. But by the same token the owners of those agencies don't get up on their high horse about candidates that are "compensation driven". If a top talent interviews with a small town agency and asks if they can do 33% of Deloitte instead of 30%, the agency might say yes and might say no, but they don't say "how dare you even think about money when I am offering you a chance to do god's work on earth by helping to build venmo, but for dogs?!?"

[mav3rick]

Thank you. That's partly the point I was trying to make.

[jstandard]

This isn't a fair assessment.

Startups can't pay BigCo wages because they don't have the money to. They have to leverage other, harder-to-value benefits which BigCo generally can't offer.

Increased responsibility, fewer "rules" on how to execute, more tightly focused mission are a few.

Naturally this differs company to company and there are always bad actors.

The compensation equation works out differently for each individual. Not everyone should work at a startup.

[mav3rick]

And that is fair. But the parent comment insinuated that anyone asking for money is doing something wrong or is inferior to "someone who truly loves technology". It's a highly personal decision with no right or wrong IMO.

[jstandard]

Agreed. "Compensation-driven thinking" may not be the best choice of words. Money is always a touchy subject.

I read parent's comment to be more about highlighting the expectations mismatch that occurs sometimes when candidates aren't willing to make compromises and then blame the startup for being "too stingy".

I've seen this mismatch occur on both sides of the table. Startups have a harder time hiring due to as they need to seek people willing to forgo direct compensation in exchange for these harder-to-value benefits. Startups need to stay self-aware they'll have a harder time hiring since the candidate pool is smaller.

Candidates applying to startups also need to temper their salary expectations. If you want to join a startup, especially pre-Series C, and you're not willing to compromise on direct compensation, then prepare for a harder time. The employer pool is much smaller and you're not likely to get the most out of working at a startup if salary is a top priority.

[didibus]

They could have the money, say they hired less people, but payed the ones they had better for example.

[bradleyjg]

> Sample size of one: my company tends to ding candidates from Google if they have any whiff of the kind of status- or compensation-driven thinking

Does it ding investors for return driven thinking, or does it happily takes checks from people so crass as to care about money?

[free652]

While I don't know about the status, but compensation is definitely is the correct thinking. Startups need to offer something for less compensation, a lot of times they offer less and even less flexible than a big co.

[dasil003]

When you're comparing against Google, outside of Facebook/Netflix pretty much all companies offer less. There are certainly plenty of predatory startups out there that are exploiting labor with unrealistic promises of riches and cap tables that guarantee no such happy outcome for employees. As an employee you have to look out for yourself, but if you set Google as the standard then everyone else is going to look cheap. There are many companies out there who simply don't have the unit economics to compete with FAANG, but may be more attractive for other reasons.

[slededit]

Then they can’t afford google talent. Short of pay they’d have to offer some other compelling narrative (e.g. HBO’s SV “changing the world through algorithms”). In essence it’s a trick to give up their economic advantage.

[dasil003]

My main point is that Google doesn't define market comp, they define top-of-market comp. If you are a software engineer expecting to make Google money then you need to make peace with the fact that there are very very few places where you can earn that. It doesn't mean that all other companies are somehow low-balling or cheating their devs just because they don't have Google's money hose of a business.

[JustSomeNobody]

What is compensation driven thinking? You mean what execs do when they decide to funnel profits back to shareholders instead of giving raises?

Look, employment is a business contract. Business is about making money.

[hellogoodbyeeee]

>if they have any whiff of the kind of status- or compensation-driven thinking displayed in this comment section.

Whenever I hear about an employer that doesn't want employees who want to get paid a fair market value, I just assume the bosses and owners are the greedy ones which exploit their employees emotions in order to under pay them.

[bb88]

Basically what you're talking about here is arrogance.

And typically yeah... that's true. You don't really want arrogant people on your team, unless they're super productive and share their knowledge freely.

[lfowles]

It means they get far enough to have those whiteboard riddler interviews.

[burfog]

I'm sure it does open some doors. It closes other doors.

I would be leery of hiring from Google. I would need to be convinced that the candidate strongly rejects Google's culture.

[joshuamorton]

I'm curious what culture at Google you object to?

[hef19898]

I second that. Maybe one more point to add abich was already hinted at in other comments. Working for company like Google allows to develop a dgree of professionalism that a start-up simply cannot. This is something you can build up on for the rest of your career.

But since you are thinking about joining a start-up, I assume you are not preparing to stay at Google until you retire, one last suggestion. Prepare for an exit strategy already basically from day one. Not to take it negative at being with Google. Just be aware that this is not your last job in your life.

[m_ke]

+1 for that. Later either join a post A round startup with traction or start your own thing.

[pierre_d528]

Yep: +1

[clubm8]

>There will never be any shortage of interesting startups to work for in the future.

You forgot to factor in the blatant age discrimination in most startups.

OP could build a nice nest egg at Google, but have a severe lack of free time + not be working on "interesting" work, and come out of it financially stable but unable to compete with fresh out of college grads with no lives, willing to work 24/7 and who have all the time in the world to mess around with the latest and "greatest" new foo

[vanilla_nut]

I understand the risks you're talking about here, but it's not like OP will start working at Google and suddenly his technical skills will atrophy. It is still a very competitive place to get into and a place where great work takes place. Even if OP doesn't get extremely interesting projects, a more established company is often better in terms of mentorship. Not to mention the fact that financial stability as well as the job security of working at such a large company have their own benefits.

I think OP could work at Google and have a promising career start, while taking on the risk of working on slightly-less-interesting projects.

At the same time, OP could work at this startup and make a bucketload of money through equity while working on fascinating projects. But the work could also be boring API stitching. Or the hours could be really long, and OP might have no outside life.

They're both good options. But back to the point I was originally trying to make: it's not like OP is going to work at Google and then never get hired by a startup again. In fact, working at Google is such a positive signal on a resume that it might actually make it easier to work at startups in the future.