Why You Should reject Uber a Job Offer From Facebook?

I used to work at Facebook, I’m now a senior engineer at Uber. I’m going to give you as many comparison points as possible. Money. Of course Facebook will offer you more salary, and also more security. FB is also doing very well on the stock market, with no sign of slowing down. I joined FB when its share price was at it lowest, and it’s consistently exceeded analysts expectations every quarter ever since. It’s likely that one day, they will miss a step and that there will be an adjustment, but things will go well in general. The main difference with Uber is that FB equity is liquid, so in one year, you can cash those RSUs.

In contrast at Uber, most likely, your salary will be lower and equity higher. But Uber is not public, and so RSUs are paper money. In that sense, Facebook is a more risk-averse choice; Uber may offer a greater compensation over 4 years but you wouldn’t really feel it until it goes public.

Now perks. The clear winner is Facebook, life at Facebook is so much nicer than at Uber. The food on campus is great, you travel in business class and stay at fancy hotels, there’s a free gym on campus, they do your laundry, and the list goes on and on. You also get to see celebrities on campus all the time if it’s your thing. Uber in comparison is much more frugal. I mean, we have coffee and snacks and catered meals and nice furniture, so there’s that. But we don’t have any of the outrageous tech clichés. Uber has one very important thing that FB doesn’t: it’s in San Francisco. I personally walk to work almost every day, it’s fantastic. If I want to do errands during the day I can, go home for whatever reason and come back - it’s all possible. The unique Uber perk is Uber credit, and that’s really nice too. Of course, all of this is void if you don’t live in San Francisco, in which case Facebook is possibly more convenient.

Now size and impact. I joined both companies when they were about the same size, roughly 4000 people. Facebook felt very big. I was just one 4000th of that big machine. When I joined, I started by something like 2 months of training and on boarding (I had lots of training at Facebook.) My last year at Facebook wasn’t great as most of the projects I worked on never saw the light of day and were cancelled one after the other. And so, when I left, I felt like an even smaller cog: just one 12000th. Uber felt smaller because so much of Uber employees work in city offices and not at HQ. There were maybe 600 engineers? On my 2nd day I was landing production code. Half the employees use a tool I designed every day, I can talk to pretty much anyone, explain what I do and they’ll instantly get it. The size of the engineering team has increased a lot but it feels largely the same than it ever has. For me that would definitely be the biggest selling point for Uber.

The tech. Facebook is a tech powerhouse, and many of the projects it authors have a tremendous influence. I’m a front end engineer, and I breathe React day in and day out. We have a lot of open source projects at Uber as well, but none of the magnitude of Facebook to be honest. The flip side is that engineers at Facebook are expected to be more polyvalent than at Uber, and work with PHP which many people hate. The skill level of people is comparable (but who’s surprised, since you got both offers?). Both Facebook and Uber face incredible, massive engineering challenges that people in the outside world may not imagine.

Finally the culture. Culture at FB is very thick and omnipresent. Some people can feel it’s very supportive, some others may think it’s really obnoxious. Uber culture is really different. I won’t go in the detail for either, as you’ve been to both offices and got a feel for both so you might sense which resonates most with you.

I don’t think there’s a wrong choice here. Those are arguably the two most desirable companies to work at, bar none. I’m personally happy at Uber, mostly because I prefer what I do now. Most times I think about it, I’m glad to be at Uber versus Facebook, but at times I also really miss it. My Facebook experience largely defined me.