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Comment by nostrademons | Hacker News Reader

I'm curious: how would people compare the prestige of working at Fog Creek vs. the prestige of working at Google? Or one of the other big Internet companies - Microsoft, Amazon, Yahoo, EBay, etc...?

I remember Joel doing similar how-to-get-hired essays when I was in college. I was always like, "Pffft. Why would I want to work for a company that does bugtracking software?" Ended up taking a job at a financial software startup instead. I'm wondering if other people feel the same way or if I'm just a gigantic snob. (The two may not be mutually exclusive...)

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I think that working at a company like Fog Creek or 37 Signals would be seen as highly prestigous, but only by a pretty limited audience: those that follow software development blogs.

Whereas working at Google, pretty much everyone who has touched a computer is familiar with who Google is.

So I guess it depends on what your intended audience is.

pretty much everyone who has touched a computer is familiar with who Google is

And they'll also generally think you're somehow in charge of search and e-mail at Google. :)

Kind of like having been in the Air Force and everyone asking you what kind of jet you piloted.

Twain once said something like "The most sought-after prize is the envy of other men". It's natural to want "prestige", but chasing after it kind of misses the point of life, no?

If you haven't done so, I recommend working for a small technology company with a strong engineering culture, staffed by smart & competent people who have nothing to prove. Worthwhile problems are fractal -- there's almost always more there if you keep digging.

To get to be part of an elite club which excludes others?

"I'm curious: how would people compare the prestige of working at Fog Creek vs. the prestige of working at Google?"

Improving PageRank (Google) > gluing APIs (anywhere) > editing project docs (anywhere)

It depends on what you do. Google definitely has more high profile jobs than Fog Creek, but also probably more grunt jobs than a typical small company.

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