Evaluating offers: FAANG vs unicorn

Thinking from a future perspective, higher pay helps in your plans for entrepreneurship.

But, you leaving on the table Amazon name in your resume, huge learning opportunity, and most importantly, exposure to product.

I would not worry about team culture, leave that to when you actually get placed there, and it's not hard to change teams inside Amazon.

Regarding your questions:

1. It matters a lot, it gives you relatively high pay, and possible exposure to product teams, and working closely with them.
2. You typically don't have control over placement once you get in, but if you are in good standing it's very easy to transfer internally.
3. I haven't moved to entrepreneurship role, but I have worked in both FAANG and smaller companies. Smaller companies best trait is speed, FAANG companies excel in all (Learning chances, higher exposure, huge scale...)
4. Typical oncall load, average time for SDEs in level within the team, and type of product they work on (product/cost centre)

I actually think top unicorns are better than FAANG as you get both the stability and money, but your situation is a bit tricky. BitGo seems like a very good company; however, I wouldn't put it in that highest tier (I personally haven't heard of it). As for what I think is in that highest tier, Notion is a great example IMHO (OpenAI and Anthropic don't really count as I consider them Big Tech given how they're funded). Between Notion and Amazon, I would recommend 99.9% of the time that the person take Notion.

I am slightly leaning towards Amazon, but I don't think you can really go wrong here with either offer. With the 2024 US election, the crypto market is definitely going to heat up (Trump is pretty much a crypto bro now), so BitGo's prospects are promising.

My advice is to listen to your gut. Which hiring manager did you enjoy talking more with? Just go to them. At the end of the day, manager and team quality are the most important thing, far more than the company overall.

Now I'll go through your questions 1 by 1.

How much does FAANG experience actually matter for future career flexibility (especially if interested in entrepreneurship/product roles)?

A lot. Brand names are powerful. I think Amazon wins here as BitGo is a smaller-end unicorn ($1.75B).

For those who've worked at both large tech and smaller companies - what are the key tradeoffs in terms of learning opportunities and career growth? Especially interested in hearing from those who later moved into entrepreneurship or product roles.

I've done both, and I put really detailed thoughts here: "What's the difference between Big Tech and startups in terms of learning and growth?"

Any red flags I should look for during team matching/final conversations that might indicate poor team culture?

I recommend this: "How possible is it to spot red flags about toxic culture during the interview?"

Dang the TC is quite low. new grads generally get in the 150-180k range in US, not sure how it is in canada. I def think you can negotiate here