Ask HN: Deciding Between Yahoo and Amazon

1 points by altaaf_baatli 6y ago ↗ HN

I am a current graduate student graduation in March 2020. I have software engineer university grad offers from Amazon, Seattle and Yahoo, Sunnyvale. I interned at Yahoo in Summer 19, and have the verbal return offer from them. I am facing a hard time deciding which company to join. Compensation-wise, there won't be much difference. But technically speaking, which is a better place to work at in terms of my career growth as this will be my first full time job? I enjoyed the internship at Yahoo! and my team. With that being said, I heard Amazon is good for initial career shaping. (Yahoo is a sinking ship, so I have heard). I know the team I will be joining at Yahoo, and it's the domain I wanna progress in, as opposed to Amazon where you get to know the team after you accept the offer. Considering every possible factor (excluding compensation), which is a better place to work at?

2 comments

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ggm 6y ago ↗

I would be cautious buying into the sinking ship metaphor, not the least because you may owe your future employer the intent to keep the ship from sinking. You're early stage career, and don't need an employer with a 20+ year horizon.

Yahoo may not be in the dotcom glory days boom phase, but its not going away, and it has some increadibly smart people. I know somebody vaguely who worked in europe on Yahoo backed stuff and it was front-line innovative work.

Amazon is huge and complex and has many rulers and conflicting rules, and also has this nasty 'Screw the worker' back-taste about how you, the digerati get the candy, but the people in the warehouse are urinating in bottles to make pay.

Do you really want that on your personal live choice resume?

WheelsAtLarge 6y ago ↗

Amazon is the rising star vs Yahoo. Amazon is the company with new ideas and a better technical reputation. But you should be comparing jobs and career advancement rather than companies. A big chunk of the people that starts at a company don't stick around forever so I would be thinking of how the position will advance my career and life.