I think this is the classic question of “less interesting work at prestigious company vs interesting work at less prestigious company”
I am debating between Anduril and Meta for new grad. I am leaning towards Anduril because of everything else other than prestige: my coworkers are very smart, there’s a ton of scope for new grads and work is interesting. I’m only considering Meta for prestige and predictable career growth. Anduril is a hot unicorn but I was surprised when none of the recruiters I talked to knew what Anduril was.
When I think about exit opportunities, Anduril feels limited. The defense sector is growing slowly with many reports indicating a 10% CAGR at most. This means it’s unlikely there’ll be many good companies that’ll hire me in defense and opportunities feel limited. I’m not particularly excited about other companies in defense besides Anduril. While I haven’t been team matched at Meta, I can imagine Meta having many more exit opps than Anduril as they work on AR/VR, AI, robotics and other trendy technologies.
With the tariff situation in the current administration, I can imagine that the job market will become even more competitive down the line. This means that Meta’s brand value will be even more important. To me, Meta is a means to get a better job, whereas Anduril is said better job. So should I take Meta for better future exit opps or go to Anduril?
When does it make sense to sacrifice interesting work to set yourself up for more exit opps, versus going to a lesser known company? Should you trade off learning, ownership and scope to go to a more prestigious company in a bear market?
PS. Here’s how I measured exit opps. I went on LinkedIn and found the % of people who go to big tech or top unicorn after working at Anduril and same with Meta. Unsurprisingly Meta beat out Anduril by a mile.
