[SamReidHughes]

Honestly that's going to depend on the engineer. I never considered Uber or Palantir prestigious, and I have never heard of Affirm or Blend. That doesn't mean I'm right to think such -- with Palantir I'm biased for political reasons, and with Uber, I was also likely wrong not to think so, now that I think about it.

Well, I never heard of Affirm as a tech company to work at, but now I thank you're talking about the company offering loans at high interest rates for people buying stuff they can't afford. I'm not sure what's so prestigious about a humdrum finance company.

Amazon and Microsoft, everybody has heard of, and at least they require people with a pulse. They know how to ship good software, and they got real shiznit going down, and that counts for a lot. Depends on your role.

High hiring bar + works on cool stuff + high salary + company visibility is the general formula here.