Ask HN: What is so special in working for Facebook?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1850200

by gsivil • 16 years ago

31 33 16 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Why so many good programmers like to work for Facebook? What is the really rewarding thing for working in Facebook?

BarkMore• 16 years ago

It's rewarding when your work is used by 500 million people.

citizenkeys2• 16 years ago

Yeah... but does any of that work benefit man-kind at all? More than 500 million people also use a toilet every day. So what? 500 million people and the most interesting thing on it is a "virtual farm". That's just plain ridiculous.

poet• 16 years ago

Bad example. Without toilets our cities would be disease ridden, awful places. You're obviously trolling, but I just thought I'd point that out. :)

hoochsta• 16 years ago

the dude who made the toilet would be like shit yeah i made the toilet.

patio11• 16 years ago

Facebook lets my disabled mother stay in touch with the members of her extended family, who otherwise would only be available at get togethers that she is not always well enough to travel to. It is the most important non medical technology in her life after the Wii. (Her doctors want to give Nintendo a medal, because that is amazing for rehabilitation.)

GDH• 16 years ago

In the latest issue of Forbes Bill Gates said that he believes the toilet industry could be the next big boom, right now all of NA uses an old system with many design flaws.

That's all.

dclaysmith• 16 years ago

His example is a bit trollish but his point is valid. The amount of people who use something doesn't make it valuable. The only reason I would take a job at Facebook would be because it's pre-IPO and because you'd get to tackle some pretty unique technical issues (scaling/social graph).

tgriesser• 16 years ago

I'm sure any pre-IPO stock issued to their employees, while not being a really rewarding thing right now, is going to pay off big in a relatively short timeframe... see: http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/01/google-making-extraordinary...

toolate• 16 years ago

How does the stock thing work? Is it given to all engineers? It seems to be just Silicon Valley companies who give away stock/options as a matter of course, so I'm a little mystified.

random422• 16 years ago

The two startups I worked in so far (Incorporated in the US, working in India), have offered me stock options, so its certainly not a "Valley only" thing.

joezydeco2• 16 years ago

At this point in the game, can any new employee expect to get options that are not insanely diluted?

I guess if you're a Lars Rasmussen-class talent you're going to get some special class of stock to entice you to come over, but what about the rest of the new hires?

yaskyj2• 16 years ago

Dilution doesn't really apply to these employees. They don't care about their amount of ownership in the company. All that matters is how much stock they get and what they expect the stock to be worth at IPO. If they've received 10,000 shares and the IPO is at $100, then they're millionaires by the end of that day (on paper, at least).

drivebyacct2• 16 years ago

Run a few basic, even worst case, valuation scenarios and I think you'll answer that question for yourself.

richardw• 16 years ago

There's a potential with Facebook that isn't there with many other companies. It has an enormous social graph but hasn't found a way to fully unlock its value. The challenge is to help find Facebook's business-model and technical equivalent of Adwords, if such a thing exists.

mfringel• 16 years ago

They're dealing with very interesting scalability/complexity problems, and they're currently pre-IPO.

random422• 16 years ago

In not any particular order,

1. Good quality true "Web scale" work.

2. Top benefits (and I suppose a decent paycheck too).

3. Smart peers.

4. Realistic chances of hitting the IPO/Acquisition jackpot through equity.

Whats not so great at working there?

brosephius• 16 years ago

#4 doesn't really apply so much to newer employees. granted I don't know this for a fact, but at this point I'd be surprised if your average software engineer gets jackpot-level equity.

gsivil2• 16 years ago

If I may start from your good points: 1.) In a network of 500 million users already are the scaling problems still open? I would suspect that the biggest scaling problems appeared much earlier. If somebody knows what are the scaling problems that such an enormous networks faces would be very interesting.

2.) I would guess that top programmers can have top benefits in several companies. Even less excellent programmers could get a decent paycheck in many places

3.) I am not familiar with the demographics of facebook but my gut feeling is that most of the programmers are in their early twenties or mid-twenties. This was also my impression during one of the job fairs that I have attended.

gsivil2• 16 years ago

cont 3.) I am not so sure what type of mentoring somebody could get there

Definitely extremely smart peers

At the same time it seems that top programmers are moving to Facebook. Do they see something in the potential of the company that I fail to see. I guess the possibility of huge financial success besides the "stockmarket" value that is already established they foresee something else.

karmawhore• 16 years ago

I like their philosophy that you can make changes and push them often so that you do see immediate gratification that your work means something. A typical non-startup developer's work could take years before it ever hit a desktop.

While the stock options that others mention is a motivator, typically companies use options to buy down your salary. You would make $120k, but, we're going to give you $90k + $30k in options that could be worth more than $30k in a few years. Pre dot-bomb, extremely greedy employees would work for a .com, trade huge amounts of salary for options and live frugally until the IPO. I can think of one guy that worked for Real Networks for a few years that took 66% of his pay in options which were underwater when his options matured.

Options are a payment type and are a gamble on the employee's part. The employer believes that shared ownership will also motivate employees, which makes those options worth more.

willheim• 16 years ago

Thrill of a start-up but with the "security" of some serious investment and traction. It's the wild-west and they encourage experimenting by hiring the smartest people they can find. 15-20 years ago you might have asked the same thing about Microsoft.

bhiggins• 16 years ago

You get to tell your friends you work at Facebook and they get to be like oh sweet and they say what are you working on and you get to say oh the billing platform for virtual goods and they get to say like whoa that is so exciting!!

cmutiff• 16 years ago

It's not for the money - any of the talented folks could go work at a hedge fund and make 10x. The secret sauce is that it's a fun culture, great product, and the company has huge potential to innovate into new areas. And you get fed.

Ask HN: What is so special in working for Facebook?

Related Stories