[Anonymous]

Hi everyone,

I am currently in the process of changing Big 4 firms and a question as to which office I want to recruit for is now starting ot pop up. I’m interested in working the tech industry and moving into either FP&A or becoming a controller at a company down the road.

My question is how much will working in a very large market (such as San Francisco/San Jose for tech) make a difference in terms of career prospects compared to working for a smaller city (think Denver, Austin, Seattle, Raleigh, etc.) that still have a presence in tech, but on a smaller scale. For example, does auditing Google, Facebook, etc. carry more weight on my resume compared to working with a lesser well-known tech company or is B4 experience viewed the same?

I’d appreciate any thoughts you all have on this. I’m torn because I feel as though my quality of life will be higher at the smaller office (less hours, more purchasing power of salary, less big city traffic hassle, etc.), but I don’t want to trade in initial QoL if working for a bigger office opens more doors down the road when I look to jump.

Thanks!

[justgivemea75]

I'm also interested in this

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DONE!

[Anonymous]

Firstly, don't think that you quality of life/work life balance will be any better in a place like seattle (vs San Fran). Secondly, yes managing the audit of google or Facebook or Microsoft ot other well known big company, will be great for your resume.

[Anonymous]

Would you be able to expand on why QoL wouldn't be much better? I could see the work-life balance maybe not being much better, but, living in a megacity right now, the day-to-day really gets to me. I hate dealing with traffic, the insane cost of living, etc. I get so worn down by it that I don't even have the energy to explore the city and take advantage of it.

[Mrs.Smith]

I don't really think that city size matters as much as the quality of experience you obtain. I have a former manager who spent almost 5 years auditing a large, well known computer technology company and told me that she really only did inventory. I thought she was joking, but nope, even at the almost manager level, she had very little FS experience and no revenue recognition experience. If you want to be a controller at a ltech company I think it's better to have top notch rev rec experience really digging into complex deals at a smaller company, than to have experience in less important areas at a large “Google/Facebook” type company. Any way you can ask about those type of things when you interview? Maybe see if they have any clients that excite you in terms of their offerings (more cutting edge things like SaaS or IaaS, or deals conbining consulting and products making the accounting more complex)?

Auditing a Goliath type company like Google will definitely get you an interview, but I think you might lose out to a another candidate if they have higher quality experience.

I think FP&A and controller are pretty different paths. FP&A, you probably shouldn't stay in audit too long, just get some basic skills and get out. To be a controller should prolly stay until couple years as a manager… In which case your QoL will be pretty low regardless of what city you pick. Maybe visit some of the cities to see if one fits better with your personality than another. Afterall, there's a lot more to life than getting ahead at work 😉

[Author]

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