Tracy Chou, interned at both
103 votes by Rishi Natarajan, Ari Shahdadi, Tal Levy, (more)
Preface:
I interned at Facebook and Google but chose not to go to Facebook or Google for full-time. I also wasn't a CS major -- EE, though I did a computer software concentration -- and I did a mostly non-technical internship at Google.
In hindsight, the most valuable things I achieved from each of my internships were
I feel like people put a big emphasis on the possibility of returning full-time to their intern employers, and I won't disagree that landing a good first job after college is important, but if you can score intern offers from both Facebook and Google you probably won't have trouble getting full-time offers. Just my guess.
I'd argue that it's more important to learn as much as you can about the job function and the company; and to grow your professional network. To the first point, I feel like I have a much richer understanding of the Silicon Valley ecosystem because I worked at both companies, even though I'm at neither now. To the second point, I ended up at Quora largely because I had met Charlie and Kevin at Facebook, and they also knew the people I worked with.
Pick whichever one will help you learn the most about and open the most doors for future career opportunities.
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Here are some more detailed comparison points:
The substance of the actual internship:
-- From talking to others in my intern class, Google's internships seemed to be really hit-or-miss. Some people had really great projects, and other people got boring / menial tasks or scraps of tasks, because there was little thought put into allocating people on projects.
-- I got the sense that Facebook's HR tried much harder to pair people up with good managers who had interesting, well-scoped, and impactful projects for them to work on. This is also an easier task for Facebook HR than Google HR because Facebook is smaller and most of the company is still focused on the same core product, whereas Google's runaway financial success with AdSense has permitted the proliferation of many side projects that are not within the core competency of the company nor particularly important to it.
Access to executives and managers:
-- Google is large and people are busy. You might see Larry and Sergey and Eric walking around, but your only exposure to them is likely to be at the company-wide TGIFs. Google prides itself on a very flat managerial structure, but that also means that each manager has many more reports and less time for each of them. Depending on how high up your manager is, you might have very limited time with them; I rarely saw mine.
-- Facebook is growing but it's much easier still to talk to executives and managers and other key figures in the company. When I stayed late with my team sometimes Zuck would swing by and chat; the fact that most people are in the same building (well, the HQ has been split into two buildings, but they're still next to each other) also allows for more chance meetings and casual chats. Additionally, most people sit right next to their intern managers which makes it much easier to get guidance and build up a good relationship.
Company growth:
-- Google has already achieved large company status.
-- Facebook is at a phase of rapid growth right now, with expansion on the order of 50 percent for the company headcount as a whole in 2010. That's pretty cool; you've got a quick path to seniority within the company without much effort on your part, which translates into more leadership roles early on and more opportunity to define your own projects and career path.
Opportunities away from Silicon Valley:
-- Google has many offices all over the world, so if you're interested in going abroad in the future, it's probably easier to work at Google and look internally for opportunities abroad. For example, I have Google friends who have gone to London, Munich, Zurich, Taipei, Beijing, Sydney, etc.
-- Facebook is expanding globally as well, but engineering is still mostly in Palo Alto and most of the other offices are very new and not yet established. This can mean more exciting opportunities but a less structured environment for trying out different locations.
Compensation, perks, miscellaneous:
-- Similarities: Pay is good. Good food (Google: something like 20 gourmet cafes to choose from, Facebook: one really good cafeteria headed by a former Google chef). Lots of microkitchens. Lots of fun intern events. Shuttle from San Francisco if you want to live in the city. Both have free gym access.
-- Differences: Google is in Mountain View on its own sprawling campus and is more difficult to access; Facebook is in Palo Alto on California Avenue, close to Stanford and semi-close to downtown Palo Alto.
I interned at Facebook and Google but chose not to go to Facebook or Google for full-time. I also wasn't a CS major -- EE, though I did a computer software concentration -- and I did a mostly non-technical internship at Google.
In hindsight, the most valuable things I achieved from each of my internships were
- the insider experience; knowledge of and familiarity with the corporate culture and strategy of the company
- a network of friends and acquaintances; some were full-time, some interns, some stayed, some left, but in any case, a wide-ranging network of people across Silicon Valley
I feel like people put a big emphasis on the possibility of returning full-time to their intern employers, and I won't disagree that landing a good first job after college is important, but if you can score intern offers from both Facebook and Google you probably won't have trouble getting full-time offers. Just my guess.
I'd argue that it's more important to learn as much as you can about the job function and the company; and to grow your professional network. To the first point, I feel like I have a much richer understanding of the Silicon Valley ecosystem because I worked at both companies, even though I'm at neither now. To the second point, I ended up at Quora largely because I had met Charlie and Kevin at Facebook, and they also knew the people I worked with.
Pick whichever one will help you learn the most about and open the most doors for future career opportunities.
-------
Here are some more detailed comparison points:
The substance of the actual internship:
-- From talking to others in my intern class, Google's internships seemed to be really hit-or-miss. Some people had really great projects, and other people got boring / menial tasks or scraps of tasks, because there was little thought put into allocating people on projects.
-- I got the sense that Facebook's HR tried much harder to pair people up with good managers who had interesting, well-scoped, and impactful projects for them to work on. This is also an easier task for Facebook HR than Google HR because Facebook is smaller and most of the company is still focused on the same core product, whereas Google's runaway financial success with AdSense has permitted the proliferation of many side projects that are not within the core competency of the company nor particularly important to it.
Access to executives and managers:
-- Google is large and people are busy. You might see Larry and Sergey and Eric walking around, but your only exposure to them is likely to be at the company-wide TGIFs. Google prides itself on a very flat managerial structure, but that also means that each manager has many more reports and less time for each of them. Depending on how high up your manager is, you might have very limited time with them; I rarely saw mine.
-- Facebook is growing but it's much easier still to talk to executives and managers and other key figures in the company. When I stayed late with my team sometimes Zuck would swing by and chat; the fact that most people are in the same building (well, the HQ has been split into two buildings, but they're still next to each other) also allows for more chance meetings and casual chats. Additionally, most people sit right next to their intern managers which makes it much easier to get guidance and build up a good relationship.
Company growth:
-- Google has already achieved large company status.
-- Facebook is at a phase of rapid growth right now, with expansion on the order of 50 percent for the company headcount as a whole in 2010. That's pretty cool; you've got a quick path to seniority within the company without much effort on your part, which translates into more leadership roles early on and more opportunity to define your own projects and career path.
Opportunities away from Silicon Valley:
-- Google has many offices all over the world, so if you're interested in going abroad in the future, it's probably easier to work at Google and look internally for opportunities abroad. For example, I have Google friends who have gone to London, Munich, Zurich, Taipei, Beijing, Sydney, etc.
-- Facebook is expanding globally as well, but engineering is still mostly in Palo Alto and most of the other offices are very new and not yet established. This can mean more exciting opportunities but a less structured environment for trying out different locations.
Compensation, perks, miscellaneous:
-- Similarities: Pay is good. Good food (Google: something like 20 gourmet cafes to choose from, Facebook: one really good cafeteria headed by a former Google chef). Lots of microkitchens. Lots of fun intern events. Shuttle from San Francisco if you want to live in the city. Both have free gym access.
-- Differences: Google is in Mountain View on its own sprawling campus and is more difficult to access; Facebook is in Palo Alto on California Avenue, close to Stanford and semi-close to downtown Palo Alto.
Ben Maurer, Facebooker
40 votes by Jason Yun, Yishan Wong, Vibhav Sreekanti, (more)
Do both if possible — That lets you see two different technology stacks, cultures, etc. It's hard to appreciate these things without being able to contrast how they work at two companies. Obviously, this isn't practical if you are a senior.
Gather information to help you choose a full time job — One of the most valuable things you can get from your internship is a sense of whether the company you are working at would make a good long term choice for you. If you don't have enough information about one of the two companies from your friends who have interned there, an internship can be a way to gather more.
Doing well during an internship can get you a better offer — This isn't all that true at Google. The hiring process is so standardized that your internship performance won't affect your full time offer that much. In fact, I'm pretty sure they interview intern conversions, even if the host has a positive recommendation.
With Facebook, doing well during an internship can have a very big impact on your full time offer. If you're considering going to Facebook full time, interning there and going well could be a very good decision.
You'll very likely go back to the place you interned — If you were relatively happy with your internship it is going to be very hard to turn down the full time offer for an offer at a company you aren't familiar with.
Ignore the minor stuff — Both internships will look equally good on your résumé. The pay is about the same (and besides, 3 months of intern salary is peanuts compared to your future). Both are great places to work, and have great food.
Gather information to help you choose a full time job — One of the most valuable things you can get from your internship is a sense of whether the company you are working at would make a good long term choice for you. If you don't have enough information about one of the two companies from your friends who have interned there, an internship can be a way to gather more.
Doing well during an internship can get you a better offer — This isn't all that true at Google. The hiring process is so standardized that your internship performance won't affect your full time offer that much. In fact, I'm pretty sure they interview intern conversions, even if the host has a positive recommendation.
With Facebook, doing well during an internship can have a very big impact on your full time offer. If you're considering going to Facebook full time, interning there and going well could be a very good decision.
You'll very likely go back to the place you interned — If you were relatively happy with your internship it is going to be very hard to turn down the full time offer for an offer at a company you aren't familiar with.
Ignore the minor stuff — Both internships will look equally good on your résumé. The pay is about the same (and besides, 3 months of intern salary is peanuts compared to your future). Both are great places to work, and have great food.
Oliver Nicholas, startup engineer + thinker of thoughts
10 votes by Audrey Tsang, Matt Jones, Tal Levy, (more)
Facebook. An internship affords you two opportunities - to learn, and to pad your resume. If you're a good engineer, no one you should want to work for will care about your internships, and no one at all will care about them after you've been working for a year or two. Furthermore they're both top-tier companies, so you'd be fine either way - forget the latter motivation.
As for learning - if you're anything like the tinkerer a good engineer ought to be, Facebook would be an obvious choice. What follows is the distilled advice of several of my mentors:
You have your whole life to work for The Man. Google may be a reasonably down-to-earth Man, but it's still The Man. It's a giant corporation and most of what you'll learn is how Google gets things done.
Smaller organizations don't have an ingrained way of doing things - employees get to make that up as they go along. Like a coral reef, years of wall time and tens of thousands of man hours are what create corporate processes, building upon each other lesson by lesson. I suspect that Facebook is much younger - more raw - in this area. There is much still to be learned and done there.
So maximize for your own learning, and choose the smaller organization - you'll have a bigger impact, and you'll get actual experience - that kind of experience which consists in making your own decisions and grokking their consequences.
As for learning - if you're anything like the tinkerer a good engineer ought to be, Facebook would be an obvious choice. What follows is the distilled advice of several of my mentors:
You have your whole life to work for The Man. Google may be a reasonably down-to-earth Man, but it's still The Man. It's a giant corporation and most of what you'll learn is how Google gets things done.
Smaller organizations don't have an ingrained way of doing things - employees get to make that up as they go along. Like a coral reef, years of wall time and tens of thousands of man hours are what create corporate processes, building upon each other lesson by lesson. I suspect that Facebook is much younger - more raw - in this area. There is much still to be learned and done there.
So maximize for your own learning, and choose the smaller organization - you'll have a bigger impact, and you'll get actual experience - that kind of experience which consists in making your own decisions and grokking their consequences.
