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Is there data on what tech companies programmers (either generally or new grads) most want to work for? It feels like it used to be Google by a lot, but even ou

Is there data on what tech companies programmers (either generally or new grads) most want to work for? It feels like it used to be Google by a lot, but even outside the HN bubble, I get the sense Google has taken some reputation hit.

freedomben 7y ago
Would be interested in this too. Anecdatally, it seems like Amazon has really picked up among people who don't consider proprietary software to be unethical. G still has a better rep among the FOSS people. Of course my sample size is probably about 30 people, mostly from startups we've worked at together. Hardly representative of the target market for FAANG.
- gwright 7y ago
  > proprietary software to be unethical My sense is only a very small percentage (way less than 1%) of software developers think that proprietary software by definition is unethical. Am I wrong to think this?
  - Nasrudith 7y ago
    In a hard sense maybe from selection bias and counting only full time and far fewer who don't pay the rent. Maybe uo to like 5% or so if you can count academia among developers. There is a sizable chunk who would prefer to work with non-properietary software if only for the ability to take a peak. The likely winner by raw numbers would be the "apathetics" who go wity whatever works.
    - pjmlp 7y ago
      It would be welcomed if those ethics would be used to pay for the tooling as well. Instead we keep getting posts on HN from companies that either go dual licenses, or completely proprietary to stay on business, or just switch business altogether.
      - zozbot234 7y ago
        Well, it depends what kind of companies. I will happily concede that it's hard to sustain a Bay Area "unicorn" company purely on FLOSS development and support - unless that company happens to be named Red Hat.
        freedomben 7y ago
        I would agree, although I don't feel like SV has really tried to make it work. It's far easier to lock things down to absurd levels. One of the reasons I love Red Hat (and went to work there) was because a big part of our early history was doing the SV thing but staying committed to our values. I think it can be done, most people are just afraid (and not without cause, companies like Amazon will certainly take your work undercut your funding mechanisms. Not trying to swipe at Amazon (I like AWS a lot as a product) and I don't think the issue is black & white).
      - dunkelheit 7y ago
        At least now there is growing recognition that there is a problem. Given that opensource simply makes sense for many categories of software, I am hopeful that a solution that is fair to both users and developers will be figured out eventually.
    - gwright 7y ago
      > In a hard sense ... What other sense is there? Or more specifically, what makes proprietary software innately unethical? It just seems like you have to radically distort the meaning of "proprietary" or "ethical" to make any sense of the concept and at that point you are just playing with semantics and not communicating clearly.
- techslave 7y ago
  > among people who don't consider proprietary software to be unethical wouldn’t that be nearly everyone? there are very, very few RMS’s in the world.
  - scarmig 7y ago
    There's plenty of middle ground. Lots of people--the majority, I'd say--treat open source as a positive and seek it out. But they also won't go with an inferior solution just to check the OSS purity box.
    - freedomben 7y ago
      I would agree with this. Personally I've tried to choose companies whose products are fully free/libre, and for the most part have had success with that. I am no RMS, but I have a strong preference for open solutions. Because of that my sample set is certainly biased toward others who at least feel the same.
      - techslave 7y ago
        i think there are very many folks with that stance. that is a very far cry from “unethical”.
- pjmlp 7y ago
  Unethical is to use software from others, wanting to be paid for work, while not giving back a cent to those developers.
  - freedomben 7y ago
    I agree, which is one reason the FOSS types really don't like Amazon.
    - pjmlp 7y ago
      You mean the same ones that are anti-GPL and are responsible for the uptake of licences that allow companies like Amazon to do exactly what those licenses are for?
      - freedomben 7y ago
        I guess I don't know what you're talking about. I (and the people I'm referring to) are not anti-GPL. We don't use the GPL for everything because not everything needs it and without a doubt it hurts (or prevents) adoption, but we certainly do use it liberally.
      - Reelin 7y ago
        I'm puzzled by your comment. The GPL fails to prevent use of software within a proprietary cloud-based system (as has been the cause of much drama lately). AGPL or a similar license is required for that.
close04 7y ago
It would also be important to know why. Whether someone wants to work for a company despite its culture because of the other huge benefits of the job: interesting work and pay. At different points in the career or life one may put one aspect or the other at the top of their priorities list.
gautamnarula 7y ago
My evidence is mostly anecdotal too, but I have some insight into the new grad perspective both from being a recent new grad and running a site that aggregates new grad tech jobs [1]. Google is still pretty popular among new grads. Of the "Big 4" (Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft), Facebook seems to have taken the biggest hit reputationally, but is also still popular. Amazon is less popular due to the perception of its work culture and not being as engineering driven/having as high an engineering bar as Google/Facebook, but is also a popular choice. I'd say the most popular are "unicorns" that are know for having a good culture, strong engineering, and a promising financial trajectory; Stripe and Airbnb are the two that most quickly come to mind. [1] www.newgrad.tech
- akhilcacharya 7y ago
  > Amazon is less popular due to the perception of its work culture and not being as engineering driven/having as high an engineering bar as Google/Facebook, I’m a new grad that chose Amazon, what does the “not as high engineering bar” mean explicitly?
  - amznthrowaway5 7y ago
    Amazon has too many MBA TPMs (who don't actually know a thing about tech) and other non-technical folk running the show
yaacov 7y ago
Anecdotal, graduated 1 year ago and have many new-grad friends looking for work now: Airbnb is probably the most desirable non-fintech company, Uber and Lyft were in this category too before their IPOs. Of megacorps, Facebook generally has the best new grad comp and benefits, and is therefore most desirable. Google is a close-ish second, Microsoft and Amazon are far behind due to lower comp and cultural issues (In Amazon’s case, this means terrible work/life balance, in Microsoft’s, perception that it’s boring due to enterprise culture and office locations in particularly bland suburbs). Apple and Netflix aren’t really on the new-grad radar because they hire mostly experienced engineers.
- AndrewKemendo 7y ago
  I don't think the data supports your conclusion about FB. See the below article from earlier in 2019. "The company has seen a decline in its job offer acceptance rates to software engineer candidates from nearly 90% in late 2016 to almost 50% in early 2019."[1] [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/16/facebook-has-struggled-to-recruit-since-cambridge-analytica-scandal.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/16/facebook-has-struggled-to-re...
  - alasdair_ 7y ago
    From the article: "After the publication of this story, Harrison contacted CNBC to say “these numbers are totally wrong.”"
- adventskalender 7y ago
  I find that completely mind boggling, tbh. What gets people excited about AirBnB? Is this just about perks (salary and so on)? Nothing against AirBnB, it might be a fine, solid company doing a good job. But what about them is inspiring?
  - yaacov 7y ago
    Most importantly, their comp is really good. Second, it seems to me that there’s more room for growth at Airbnb than other companies with similar compensation. (This is an impression with no hard evidence to back it up)

freedomben 7y ago

Would be interested in this too. Anecdatally, it seems like Amazon has really picked up among people who don't consider proprietary software to be unethical. G still has a better rep among the FOSS people. Of course my sample size is probably about 30 people, mostly from startups we've worked at together. Hardly representative of the target market for FAANG.

gwright 7y ago
> proprietary software to be unethical My sense is only a very small percentage (way less than 1%) of software developers think that proprietary software by definition is unethical. Am I wrong to think this?
- Nasrudith 7y ago
  In a hard sense maybe from selection bias and counting only full time and far fewer who don't pay the rent. Maybe uo to like 5% or so if you can count academia among developers. There is a sizable chunk who would prefer to work with non-properietary software if only for the ability to take a peak. The likely winner by raw numbers would be the "apathetics" who go wity whatever works.
  - pjmlp 7y ago
    It would be welcomed if those ethics would be used to pay for the tooling as well. Instead we keep getting posts on HN from companies that either go dual licenses, or completely proprietary to stay on business, or just switch business altogether.
    - zozbot234 7y ago
      Well, it depends what kind of companies. I will happily concede that it's hard to sustain a Bay Area "unicorn" company purely on FLOSS development and support - unless that company happens to be named Red Hat.
      - freedomben 7y ago
        I would agree, although I don't feel like SV has really tried to make it work. It's far easier to lock things down to absurd levels. One of the reasons I love Red Hat (and went to work there) was because a big part of our early history was doing the SV thing but staying committed to our values. I think it can be done, most people are just afraid (and not without cause, companies like Amazon will certainly take your work undercut your funding mechanisms. Not trying to swipe at Amazon (I like AWS a lot as a product) and I don't think the issue is black & white).
    - dunkelheit 7y ago
      At least now there is growing recognition that there is a problem. Given that opensource simply makes sense for many categories of software, I am hopeful that a solution that is fair to both users and developers will be figured out eventually.
  - gwright 7y ago
    > In a hard sense ... What other sense is there? Or more specifically, what makes proprietary software innately unethical? It just seems like you have to radically distort the meaning of "proprietary" or "ethical" to make any sense of the concept and at that point you are just playing with semantics and not communicating clearly.
techslave 7y ago
> among people who don't consider proprietary software to be unethical wouldn’t that be nearly everyone? there are very, very few RMS’s in the world.
- scarmig 7y ago
  There's plenty of middle ground. Lots of people--the majority, I'd say--treat open source as a positive and seek it out. But they also won't go with an inferior solution just to check the OSS purity box.
  - freedomben 7y ago
    I would agree with this. Personally I've tried to choose companies whose products are fully free/libre, and for the most part have had success with that. I am no RMS, but I have a strong preference for open solutions. Because of that my sample set is certainly biased toward others who at least feel the same.
    - techslave 7y ago
      i think there are very many folks with that stance. that is a very far cry from “unethical”.
pjmlp 7y ago
Unethical is to use software from others, wanting to be paid for work, while not giving back a cent to those developers.
- freedomben 7y ago
  I agree, which is one reason the FOSS types really don't like Amazon.
  - pjmlp 7y ago
    You mean the same ones that are anti-GPL and are responsible for the uptake of licences that allow companies like Amazon to do exactly what those licenses are for?
    - freedomben 7y ago
      I guess I don't know what you're talking about. I (and the people I'm referring to) are not anti-GPL. We don't use the GPL for everything because not everything needs it and without a doubt it hurts (or prevents) adoption, but we certainly do use it liberally.
    - Reelin 7y ago
      I'm puzzled by your comment. The GPL fails to prevent use of software within a proprietary cloud-based system (as has been the cause of much drama lately). AGPL or a similar license is required for that.

close04 7y ago

It would also be important to know why. Whether someone wants to work for a company despite its culture because of the other huge benefits of the job: interesting work and pay. At different points in the career or life one may put one aspect or the other at the top of their priorities list.

gautamnarula 7y ago

My evidence is mostly anecdotal too, but I have some insight into the new grad perspective both from being a recent new grad and running a site that aggregates new grad tech jobs [1]. Google is still pretty popular among new grads. Of the "Big 4" (Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft), Facebook seems to have taken the biggest hit reputationally, but is also still popular. Amazon is less popular due to the perception of its work culture and not being as engineering driven/having as high an engineering bar as Google/Facebook, but is also a popular choice. I'd say the most popular are "unicorns" that are know for having a good culture, strong engineering, and a promising financial trajectory; Stripe and Airbnb are the two that most quickly come to mind. [1] www.newgrad.tech

akhilcacharya 7y ago
> Amazon is less popular due to the perception of its work culture and not being as engineering driven/having as high an engineering bar as Google/Facebook, I’m a new grad that chose Amazon, what does the “not as high engineering bar” mean explicitly?
- amznthrowaway5 7y ago
  Amazon has too many MBA TPMs (who don't actually know a thing about tech) and other non-technical folk running the show

yaacov 7y ago

Anecdotal, graduated 1 year ago and have many new-grad friends looking for work now: Airbnb is probably the most desirable non-fintech company, Uber and Lyft were in this category too before their IPOs. Of megacorps, Facebook generally has the best new grad comp and benefits, and is therefore most desirable. Google is a close-ish second, Microsoft and Amazon are far behind due to lower comp and cultural issues (In Amazon’s case, this means terrible work/life balance, in Microsoft’s, perception that it’s boring due to enterprise culture and office locations in particularly bland suburbs). Apple and Netflix aren’t really on the new-grad radar because they hire mostly experienced engineers.

AndrewKemendo 7y ago
I don't think the data supports your conclusion about FB. See the below article from earlier in 2019. "The company has seen a decline in its job offer acceptance rates to software engineer candidates from nearly 90% in late 2016 to almost 50% in early 2019."[1] [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/16/facebook-has-struggled-to-recruit-since-cambridge-analytica-scandal.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/16/facebook-has-struggled-to-re...
- alasdair_ 7y ago
  From the article: "After the publication of this story, Harrison contacted CNBC to say “these numbers are totally wrong.”"
adventskalender 7y ago
I find that completely mind boggling, tbh. What gets people excited about AirBnB? Is this just about perks (salary and so on)? Nothing against AirBnB, it might be a fine, solid company doing a good job. But what about them is inspiring?
- yaacov 7y ago
  Most importantly, their comp is really good. Second, it seems to me that there’s more room for growth at Airbnb than other companies with similar compensation. (This is an impression with no hard evidence to back it up)