• Early
  • Posts
  • Why Chasing "Big-Tech" Experience and Logos Doesn't Work

Why Chasing "Big-Tech" Experience and Logos Doesn't Work

Author

Kyle Thomas
February 10, 2024

JOB SEARCH STRATEGY
DON’T GO CHASING LOGOS.

Remember TLC’s advice from the 90’s?

Well, here’s a 2020’s twist: “Don’t go chasing logos.”

You’ve probably heard it too…

“I want to work for a brand that everyone knows.”

It sounds cool, right?

But it might not be all that you expect it to be.

Today, I’m diving deep into why chasing big-name brands could be a misstep in your career path.

I’ll share my own journey and the unfiltered stories of those who learned this the hard way.

It’s time to uncover the truth behind the logo allure and what really matters for your career growth.

THE LURE OF BIG BRANDS.

Look, I get it.

You’ve worked for a few companies that don’t exactly jump off the page of your resume.

And let’s face it - FAANG companies have an allure.

There’s a certain prestige in telling friends and family you work for a company they see every day.

It’s true that the salaries are generally high, the benefits are good, and you’ll get to peek under the hood of a trillion-dollar business.

But what’s your actual reason for wanting to work at FAANG?

When I ask that question, the common answer is, “To see what it’s like working inside a big tech company.”

My response is, “Ok, what do you want to see?”

More often than not what comes next is some generic regurgitation of the same answer about internal processes, great people, good pay, etc.

What you have to judge for yourself is deep down, why you actually want to work there.

Is the logo on your LinkedIn and resume worth more to you than the actual experience gained?

In my experience, the answer is “No."

What I have seen more often is that focusing on these name-brand companies could be hiding something deeper.

A lack of true understanding of where you want to go and the skills, experiences, networks, and teachers that will get you there.

CAUTIONARY TALE 1: Bryan

I got to know Bryan over the last year in the Early Accelerator.

His story is a cautionary tale of where logo chasing can go wrong.

He had joined multiple early-stage companies in the first decade of his career.

He had launched new products and markets, scaled teams, built out processes, secured partnerships, and worked directly with founders.

But something was scratching at the back of his brain.

He felt he didn’t have “big company experience”.

He wanted a name brand on his resume and a bit more security.

He thought he would find both in a big tech company.

So, he waved goodbye to the startup world and joined Wayfair.

Goodbye to his company of 160 people.

Hello to the new team of 16,000.

To get into the company, he had to give up his title.

He went from startup VP of Operations to big tech Operations Manager.

This is very common.

A VP in big-tech can be on the C-Suite in startups.

But, a startup VP in many companies is closer to a Senior Manager due to the scale of the organization.

And while Bryan thought he would be cool with the decrease in responsibility and stress, it got real old real quick.

What about the rapid increase in scope, scale, and responsibility that the hiring manager promised him during the interview process?

That turned out to be a mirage.

And to make matters worse, seven months after joining…

He was laid off! (So much for stability)

A little more than a year later, Bryan is now crushing it as the COO of a Seed-stage startup, getting paid 35% more than he was at Wayfair and getting all the direct experience he was actually after.

The moral of this story:

  1. Title Deflation: Be aware that by going to a bigger company, there’s a good chance your title is going to take a hit. This doesn’t always happen, but I have seen it happen more often than not. You may say, “I don’t care about a title,” and that’s fine. However, be aware of #2.

  2. Tightening of Scope: At a startup, you grow accustomed to owning a lot. In my experience, your advice and input are valid across the business, and you have a lot of autonomy to manage your own way. The larger the organization, the more specialized your role will become and the tighter the guardrails will be on autonomy and input.

  3. Small Fish Big Pond: Bryan had amazing experience, but so did thousands of other people in the organization. It was harder to stand out with excellent work and get more access to opportunities because of the size of the pond and because he didn’t have the ability to swim as freely.

CAUTIONARY TALE 2: Sabrina

Sabrina is another badass member of the Early Accelerator community.

She got her undergrad degree from a great school, an MBA, founded a company, rose through the ranks in a big tech org to Department Head and then jumped into the startup world.

She spent four years working at a cutting-edge startup now valued at $3.98B as a Senior Director and guided the company from Series C through Series E.

But after those four years, similar to Bryan, she felt like something was missing.

She felt that the one thing holding her career back from where she wanted to take it was the big-name FAANG brand on her resume.

So, she took a role at Meta.

Like Bryan, she went from Senior Director to Lead, a significant step down in title (again, not uncommon).

The pay was great, but negative aspects began popping up quickly.

She didn’t align with some of the company’s policies, had zero balance, dealt with cutthroat coworkers, didn’t have as much agency and autonomy, and everything was optimized for the metrics, not the users.

After three and a half years in that environment, she was ready to quit and walk away cold turkey.

But the company had also zapped her of the confidence she once had when leading the startup.

As she applied to new jobs, she felt that because she took a “lesser” title she was “less than” in the eyes of future employers.

The moral of this story:

  1. Values Alignment: Sabrina felt like she had, “sold her soul.” Regardless of where you work it’s important that you have an alignment with the values, mission, and leadership of the organization. If you don’t, this is going to lead to internal issues and resentment toward the company, no matter how much you’re getting paid.

  2. Internal Politics: The larger the organization, the more bureaucracy. The more bureaucracy, the more politics. Are there politics in early-stage startups? Sure. But the organizations are flatter, and the best organizations optimize for the growth of the company and user experience rather than everyone making “their” metrics look good.

  3. Big Company Balance: The bigger the company and the more people to share the workload, the more balance in your life, right? Wrong. Balance can be an issue regardless of the size of the company. In startups, there’s often a lack of balance due to the number of things breaking and the need to fix them for company survival. In big tech, there’s often a lack of balance because some people feel that to position yourself for a promotion in the organization, you need to appear to be “always on”.

MY EXPERIENCE: From 250 to 33k

I saw Uber grow from less than 250 people spread worldwide to more than 30,000 people in centralized offices.

The company changed dramatically over my seven-year tenure.

The larger it grew the more people specialized, the more checks and balances were put in place, and the less autonomous action you could take.

We built less and optimized more.

Yes, the free food and perks were great.

Yes, the benefits were amazing.

Yes, I got to spend time with my newborns without feeling like I was “missing out” or “falling behind”.

But the larger it got, the less I enjoyed the experience because I wasn’t able to have the impact I used to.

“But Kyle, you worked for Uber. They’re a household name. It’s easy for you to say not to chase logos because you have one on your resume.”

It's a fair point that I have Uber on my resume.

But I didn’t go after Uber because of the logo.

In fact, I didn’t go after Uber as a company at all.

I was after the experience of working on a product I loved and the ability to have a direct impact on the success or failure of the business.

I was after the skills, experience, network, and teachers I would gain.

When I joined the company my friends, family, and my wife’s coworkers asked me if I drove a taxi.

They had no idea what the company was or what it would become.

CHASE EXPERIENCE, NOT LOGOS.

So, before you get dazzled by a brand, ask yourself this question…

What do I really want from this season of my career?

Before even considering the company you want to work for, first seek to understand where you want to go and the skills, experience, network, and teachers that will make it inevitable for you to get there.

As a hiring manager, I would far rather see someone who has demonstrated their ability to perform the duties of the job I’m hiring for.

I want to see ownership, impact, leadership, initiative, and drive.

If you want more specialization, then big tech is likely a great move.

If you want a more well-rounded understanding of all business functions, increasing levels of ownership, autonomy, direct impact, direct access to senior leaders, insight into fundraising, and company building then I would question big tech as the best choice.

It’s not just about where you work.

It’s about what you do and how you grow.

If you go through that exercise and it shows that a big-tech company is the right next move - Great!

But don’t take the easy way out and think the name on your resume alone will get you where you want to go.

If you’re applying for a role with Google on your resume, it may get the interview.

But the determining factor in whether or not you get the job will be your ability to demonstrate you have the skills and experience necessary to do the job you want.

Not the logo.

OPEN ROLES
Who’s Hiring?

  • What They Do: Founded by the co-founders of Skype, Starship is using autonomous delivery robots to revolutionize local delivery. Delivering items such as groceries, takeout, and packages in over 60 locations across the world.

  • Number of Employees: 447

  • Total Raised To Date: $218.2M

  • Last Known Valuation: $371M

  • Last Raise Date: February 6, 2024

  • Recent Raise: $90M

  • Series: B+

  • Pitchbook Success Probability: 78% Success

  • Open Roles: Careers Page

  • Departments Hiring Right Now:

    • Operations

  • What They Do: Backed by top VC's and OpenAI, these 2nd-time healthcare founders are supercharging clinicians with breakthrough gen AI technology.

  • Number of Employees: 36

  • Total Raised To Date: $101.2M

  • Last Known Valuation: $300M

  • Last Raise Date: February 5, 2024

  • Recent Raise: $70M

  • Series: B

  • Pitchbook Success Probability: 90% Success

  • Open Roles: Careers Page

  • Departments Hiring Right Now:

    • Engineering

    • Marketing

    • Sales

    • Success & Operations

  • Interesting Senior Roles:

Choosing the next company to target is a personal decision based on your career and your priorities.

My word of caution is to not see a logo as the solution to all your problems.

Instead, consider the characteristics of the ideal next job and how it will accelerate you toward your compelling five-year career vision.

Let’s become career champions together 🏆

Kyle

See you again next week!

Reply

or to participate.