As a Googler, Facebook would certainly be a place I would consider if I wasn’t at google. You’re right, of course, that it is a better than fine employer.

That doesn't prove anything though: employee at biggest surveillance machine in the world considers working at the 2nd biggest surveillance machine in the world.

A lot of us software engineering types lack integrity and are perfectly happy to work on socially harmful projects as long as the pay's right and there's opportunity to grow one's skills.

> A lot of us software engineering types lack integrity

This is pretty insulting, working at Facebook doesn't necessarily mean you don't have integrity. The majority of the company is engaged in development efforts that aren't related to the odious part of the business to do with brokering personal data.

Additionally, I'm sure Facebook would move away from that if there was a viable way to get people to pay directly for social media. It's not like they're selling data because they're moustache twirling villains, they're doing it because it's the only business model anyone can make work for social media.

Further, it's interesting how Google is in exactly the same business at Facebook, yet receives a small fraction of public hatred for it.

Working at the company which is responsible for making election manipulation easier, facilitating murders and manipulating billions of people into giving up their private information is not ok, even if one actually works on some cool JavaScript library and not the evil bits themselves.

By this definition, anyone working for any platform that facilitates communication could be responsible for this unless they're policing literally every message, in which case they're grossly violating the privacy of users. This is a ridiculous standard to hold engineering staff against.

No it's not ridiculous. If Facebook is paying you to work on anything, they are getting more value out of you than your salary in their tracking endeavors.

Would you justify working for the Nazis if it was on open source libraries to better enable tracking people?

>employee at biggest surveillance machine in the world considers working at the 2nd biggest surveillance machine

Thats the most typical HN look at it

I've been visiting this website for almost 10 years.

Firstly, only in the past year have Google's or Facebook's reputations taken a turn for the worse. There are critics but there are many more cheerleaders, excuse-finders and whataboutists.

Secondly, this is not an HN bubble thing. Major publications in both the EU and US have written about the damage companies like Google and Facebook do to democracy, society and individuals. And even if it were an HN bubble, it's about time HN woke up to the malignancy of these corporations.

I don’t work on anything I consider socially harmful, FWIW. Before you ask, I don’t think most people would consider what I do socially harmful either, if they knew what it was.

Whatever you're working on, you're helping Google maintain their dominance and continue their abuse, otherwise you can be pretty sure they wouldn't be paying you for it.

I dont accept the premise that a large fraction of Google’s actions are abuse.

I seriously don't get why Google and Facebook got that brand name. 95% of engineers there are part of the pack and do mainly mindless jobs with very little impact. They are the mot "Sheep-ish" people I know, convinced that working for Google/Facebook give them something to brag at dinner parties.

The top 5 rockstars % (the ones they really want to attract with big money) are the ones taking all decisions.

I don’t know if I’m a sheep or a rock star but I do know I enjoy my work and probably get paid more than I could get anywhere else.

What do you think of Microsoft, Amazon, and Apple? Are they worthy of your talents as well?

They're good companies, but not as nice to work for as Google and Facebook.

Would you think less of me as an employee of Apple instead of an employee of Facebook?

??? You seem like you’re trying to find a fight here for reasons I cannot fathom. All I think of you as an employee of one of these companies is that you’re probably less well compensated than you could be.

Of course, although all to a lesser extent, since they are widely believed to pay less.

Clearly it can't be that prestigious since they declined me :).

But seriously, while they probably are prestigious and cool right now, I do feel that there's enough hostility towards FB in the hacker community (and thus their supply of employees) that it might start forcing them to hire average-at-best engineers.

> Facebook an absolutely prestigious employer

Anecdotally, I’m helping several friends, who are each exceptionally capable, employed at Facebook with new jobs. They reached out before this revelation, to their credit, though this threw fuel on the fire. I suspect Facebook will be known for having hired mediocre sell-outs a few years from now.

From your profile:

> I trade private equity stakes in technology companies. Former aerospace investment banker and before that, algorithmic equity derivatives trader.

You're also the one who submitted this article. Somehow I doubt you are actually helping friends at FB find new jobs. I think it's much more likely that you are short FB. There's a lot of your type out there spreading articles like this as much as possible.

Maybe you should spend some time thinking about what contributions you investment banker types are making to society, if there is any. Good riddance...

I graduated six years ago, have worked at Microsoft and Dropbox, and anecdotally around a quarter of my friends at either of them wouldn't work at Facebook now. Parent comment is not obviously wrong, and you shouldn't assume bad faith.

Your last submission was titled "We're lucky Mark Zuckerberg is in charge" and around half your comment history is devoted to defending Facebook. At least if you're going to question someones motives, you should state yours.

Lol I can still remember when Microsoft was the big Bogeyman.

Most epic burn of HN history.

Did you actually do a poll of your coworkers on this topic? :)

I think it's pretty reasonable to assume an investment banker isn't going to be much help to FB employees in finding a new job. Claiming that "Facebook will be known for having hired mediocre sell-outs a few years from now." is at best a baseless slander. How in the world is that not in bad faith?

Spreading misinformation to aid one's short position is a much worse case of bias, in my mind, than what I've said in defense of the company.

1. No, it's not reasonable to assume a technology-sector investor isn't going to be able to help techie friends find jobs.

2. The "slander" was supported by an anecdote. And this is a comment section -- opinionated statements will be found.

3. What might be closer to slander is the fantastic assumption that the other commenter is shilling for a short position in Facebook. That's a mind-boggling assumption to make on the flimsiest of evidence. Even setting aside that trying to promote your short in a random HN comment is laughable

4. You're curiously silent on your own bias, well noted by pantaloons

I'm not "curiously silent" on my own bias. What do you want me to say exactly? You're trying really hard to paint the same picture you're criticizing, namely that I'm some sort of shill.

I think the idea that everyone at FB who doesn't leave immediately is a "mediocre sell-out" is very far from the truth, and contrary to my own experience. Thus I'm suspicious of people who claim such.

There's already enough people on HN that will type out a borderline vitriolic four point list of why anyone who defends FB is wrong.

Why don't you look at JumpCrisscross' post history? This isn't the only anti-FB article he's submitted. Or are you a bit biased here? :) He has even commented on FB's stock price and predicted it will go down more in the future.

My bias is that I think there's another side to the story.

> I think the idea that everyone at FB who doesn't leave immediately is a "mediocre sell-out" is very far from the truth, and contrary to my own experience. Thus I'm suspicious of people who claim such.

You are so self-assured about your position that you immediately take the contrary assertion to be in _bad faith_? This seems silly to me, but perhaps we'll have to agree to disagree.

But seriously, what are your motives in defending Facebook so much?

Why wouldn’t an investment banker be able to help? I work at a large investment bank, and we hire from the same pool of top engineers as the FAANGs.

> I doubt you are actually helping friends at FB find new jobs

I did.

> it's much more likely that you are short FB

I don’t own a single share, nor am I short a single share, of any public company. I play in private companies’ equities and debts. That’s my day job, and it (along with super-safe bonds) are where I put my money. You may be confusing bankers with fund managers.

> you should spend some time thinking about what contributions you investment banker types are making to society

I think about this frequently. Many bankers waste their oxygen. But I don’t think I do.

At best, someone at Facebook might do something I strive to—help bring something new to the world that is good and wouldn’t have otherwise existed. At worst, I lose money. (Never fun, but by legal requirement I can only lose the money of those with very much of it.) At worst, Facebook prompts violent atrocities.

Excuse me, I disagree with the parent and think their views of FB are completely wrong...

But that's absolutely not reason enough to blatantly impugn someone's motives, and suggest outright that they are doing something illegal.

Hey what are the top challenges that Facebook offer? I dont work in tech and follow HN as I find the less technical posts interesting, and I can’t grasp why people want to work in many of these companies, like where is the buzz from working at Facebook now?

Downvotes but no responses... But seriously, its already built to a huge scale, its core product that people actually use (newsfeed / apps) havn’t changed in years(functionally - I’m sure the code base has..). is it the appeal of working on a product used by a significant proportion of the worlds population or just working at a huge company?

Downvotes because to be honest your response sounds either incredibly clueless, or incredibly arrogant/condescending (I wasn't the one who downvoted FWIW).

Here for a preview of something that is completely led by Facebook due to their scalability needs, and that most small/mid/large employers would never have the resources to fund, or the need to pursue: https://code.fb.com/open-source/linux/

All these projects have had major contributions during 2018, so not everything has been "figured out" yet.

Hi, thanks for the information, I did not mean to be condescending, definitely completely clueless! The interesting thing is building the tools that lets you run a platform the size of Facebook. Cool.

>All my acquaintances working in tech [...]

Of course they do. I too, when in polite professional company, don't rip into facebook and make myself look like the tinfoil hat nutter.

Yea, I know what you mean. It's unfortunate too since FB does hav some pretty cool things that are worth talking about!

but when you shit where you eat, it all looks like shit.

What other companies do your acquaintances working in tech consider “prestigious”?

Generally it's FAANG (minus Amazon, plus some unicorns), for the reasons mentioned above: a very good balance of excellent compensation, talented peers to work with, and interesting work.

Joining these companies in the right teams is literally what makes it possible to have an exciting technical career AND the guarantee of being able to retire (or more generally, gain financial freedom) in your early/mid 40s, if one decides to stay on an individual contributor technical track. Seriously, it's the only decision that makes sense if one has the chops to get into one of those places. Always pay yourself first, with interesting works that keeps you marketable and with liquid cash to put into your retirement savings!

I would have jumped ship myself but, as I said in a few other previous comments, I had crazy luck to join a "very mediocre" startup who is growing a lot, so my appreciated equity prevents me from leaving, otherwise I'd for sure be in FB right now, since the offer they extended me was very generous and the specific work was something I wouldn't be able to do anywhere else.

A close friend of mine was hired for their network traffic team a few months ago. I spoke to him recently and he said: "boy, I thought I knew many things about handling large traffic at scale, but the things I'm seeing here are simply unprecedented". So, to all the people who say FB will go down in history for hiring mediocre people, please recognize how ridiculous your statements are.

> Seriously, it's the only decision that makes sense if one has the chops to get into one of those places.

For you, sure.

There are better ways I can think of spending my 20s and 30s than just setting up for retirement in my 40s, because when you're in your 40s, you're not in your 20s or 30s anymore.

I never said "than _just_ setting up for retirement". I am in my early 30s and early retirement has always been a major goal for me (grew up dirt poor and suffered because of it), and yet I don't feel I will ever regret working very hard during this past decade, since it allowed me to accomplish some things I'm pretty proud of:

- It allowed me to immigrate to the US and become a citizen in 8 years, coming from a poor European country, thanks to my engineering background I obtained by getting a BS + MS in computer engineering while other acquaintances were going down an easier path (e.g. "I don't want to waste my early 20s studying").

- It allowed me to live in San Francisco, an absolutely amazing city where I am having the time of my life, cultivating relationships with my diverse group of friends, exploring nature, ...

- It allowed me to work on very interesting projects and technical work.

- It allowed me to travel without worrying about budgeting, I take a month of international travel every year and in between jobs I took a 4 months break to explore more deeply SE Asia.

- All that hard work allowed me to be incredibly well compensated, and in my very early 30s my liquid net worth is in the 7 figures now (started from exactly 0 out of school), which gives me an immense freedom for the rest of my life.

So, I didn't "_just_ set up for retirement", and had I been in FAANG I would have likely done exactly the same (since that's what my friends working there do), just being paid more so right now my net worth would be even higher.

I'll certainly agree to disagree since my statement was perhaps too strong, but I just wanted to bring the perspective that one can work hard with an early retirement goal without giving up on the things that one could "otherwise enjoy" if pursuing a different goal.

Interesting. Out of curiosity, why don't they think Microsoft or Amazon are prestigious? Which one of those parameters do they fail?

Amazon is known to pay less and have a brutal work life balance.

Microsoft is known for paying less and being too big and too political to the point where making an impact is really difficult.

Mind you, this is on average: there are stellar teams at both of those companies that work on incredible stuff, and I would consider an honor and privilege to be in that situation, if the opportunity was given to me. Likewise, there are many teams in Google maintaining internal legacy applications with no challenges to solve, and you would have to pay me 7 figures to force me to work on those.

Weird. Are you saying the average Amazon or MS engineer has less prestige and that they are worse, if the companies are worse on average?

I personally couldn't get into Facebook or Google. What does that make me?

According to my experience, the average Amazon/Microsoft engineer would jump in a heartbeat to Google/Facebook, given the opportunity and assuming the logistics are feasible. The opposite is much less common. If you download the Blind app and start reading threads, you’ll quickly realize this trend yourself, and it matches what I’ve heard from acquaintances. Based on these observations, yes, I conclude those engineers have less prestige until they stay with those employers (relative obviously, they are still at a top tech company, so probably in the very top percentiles of the market).

Once again, this is on average, it depends on the specific team. There are insanely talented people at both MS and Amazon!

As far as you not getting accepted, not passing an interview there doesn’t mean you are not talented, but passing the interview very likely means you are talented, and for them this high false negative rate is good enough at this time.

I’ve been lucky enough to get offers at Google, Netflix and Facebook and the interviews were definitely hard, I can’t imagine a weak candidate passing those interviews by mistake, but I can very well imagine a smart candidate not passing them. Preparation is key: I played the game for a few months and prepared according to their interview style. It’s tedious and time consuming work.

>> Seriously, it's the only decision that makes sense if one has the chops to get into one of those places.

I don't apparently

> I conclude those engineers have less prestige until they stay with those employers

Well, I appreciate your honesty - when I tell most people about how I make ~$150k at one of those companies they usually claim they don't look down on me when I've always maintained they secretly do. Thanks for clearing it up.

I hope my life isn't forever ruined by my inability to get into FB/G/top startups out of undergrad. I prepared for years but never got past the onsites. Hopefully someday I'll be able to gain the respect of people like you.