From a software engineering point of view there are a couple of things that would potentially put me off applying to an EA-org:
Lack of mentorship (this is somewhat covered by your small teams point but this is the specific part that I think of). I’m sure this isn’t true for all EA orgs but the appeal of ie FAANG is that I am very confident that I’ll be able to get mentored by engineers at the top of the field, who likely already have a lot of experience mentoring, having good structures for mentors and are generally empowered to be great at that.
Small scope/scale for projects, particularly for frontend work. In SWE a big part of your career capital comes from being able to say you’ve worked on projects that are really big and/or really fast. There are plenty of fullstack jobs at EA orgs around at the moment but a lot of them are basically look after a website or build an app which will serve a niche community.
I think there has been discussion before about SWEs feeling like EA orgs don’t offer them enough career capital, but I can’t remember where and it doesn’t appear to have updated me much in favour of the EA orgs.
If you’re not applying to EA orgs because of too-low-salaries, tell them
Or anonymously:
PM me
Submit it totally anonymously
Why tell them?
Because they don’t know. “Why don’t people apply?”—they ask. But this is basically a blind spot: If nobody gives them feedback, they won’t know.
Are you not applying because of something else?
You’re better fit for E2G?
The teams are too small?
There’s no local team in your area?
Something else?
This is valuable information.
If enough people share this, it will save doing a user research project. Please be one of the people that shares, help understanding what’s going on!
From a software engineering point of view there are a couple of things that would potentially put me off applying to an EA-org:
Lack of mentorship (this is somewhat covered by your small teams point but this is the specific part that I think of). I’m sure this isn’t true for all EA orgs but the appeal of ie FAANG is that I am very confident that I’ll be able to get mentored by engineers at the top of the field, who likely already have a lot of experience mentoring, having good structures for mentors and are generally empowered to be great at that.
Small scope/scale for projects, particularly for frontend work. In SWE a big part of your career capital comes from being able to say you’ve worked on projects that are really big and/or really fast. There are plenty of fullstack jobs at EA orgs around at the moment but a lot of them are basically look after a website or build an app which will serve a niche community.
I think there has been discussion before about SWEs feeling like EA orgs don’t offer them enough career capital, but I can’t remember where and it doesn’t appear to have updated me much in favour of the EA orgs.
Thank you!