From Google to Startups: 8 Critical Hiring Differences Every Tech Candidate Should Know - Insights from Em Rhodenbaugh

Em Rhodenbaugh, a technical recruiting leader with over 13 years of experience across Google, Airbnb, Reddit, and numerous startups, recently shared her insights on navigating different company environments in our 'Ask a Recruiter' series.

Watch the full 'Ask a Recruiter' Video below:

Having built and scaled teams at some of tech's most innovative companies—including growing Airbnb's product organization from 12 to over 100 product managers—Em offers invaluable insights for candidates navigating today's complex tech hiring landscape. Here are the eight critical differences between hiring at established tech giants versus startups that every candidate should understand:

1. Environmental Structure and Success Factors

"I have a fundamental belief that anyone can be successful, but it's largely dependent on their environment. And so while someone could be successful at Google, they might not be as successful in an earlier-stage startup and vice versa," Em explains.

The key differences in work environments are:

Established companies: Highly structured roles, defined career ladders, and clear processes
Startups: Minimal structure, fluid responsibilities, and often the need to build frameworks yourself
Impact on candidates: Assess your comfort with ambiguity versus structure before deciding where to apply

Your success largely depends on matching your working style to the right environment, making this assessment critical before beginning your job search.

2. Drastically Different Interview Processes

"Interview preparation is extremely important. As you can imagine, it's very different from organization to organization," Em notes. "Google's done a lot of really cool research about what on-the-job success looks like, and they've linked that back to their interviews and created a lot of success hiring high-performing teams."

Interview approaches vary dramatically:

Google/Big Tech: Algorithm-focused, structured problems, and standardized evaluation criteria
Startups: Applied, scenario-based questions that may not have a "right" answer
Technical assessments: Familiarize yourself with the platform beforehand—Em shared how one candidate "had to update their Chrome browser in the middle of this time-stamped interview, which then led them not to have enough time to finish the problem."

Em recommends always asking your recruiter about the format beforehand: "One of the very, very few things that I can influence is candidate preparation. I can understand what is happening in the interview process. I can share that information with candidates."

3. The Entrepreneurial Mindset Divide

At startups, especially early-stage ones, the emphasis on entrepreneurial thinking creates a fundamental hiring difference:

At the time Airbnb was a growing startup, "Joe [VP of Product at Airbnb] made it really, really easy for the team because he said, 'We need to hire people that are entrepreneurs at heart. We're hiring many CEOs. And ideally, these candidates have five years of experience and have started a company.'"

What startups value versus big tech:

Startups: Resilience after failure, or as Em recalls from Airbnb, candidates who are comfortable "drinking from the trough of sorrows"
Big Tech: Specialized expertise within well-defined roles and systems
For candidates: Demonstrate your growth mindset and ability to thrive amid ambiguity when interviewing at startups

This difference explains why Airbnb now ranks among the top 10 companies whose alumni go on to found their own ventures.

4. The Compensation Structure Reality

Em emphasizes that equity represents the most significant compensation difference:

"The way in which compensation packages differ, I think, the main point is going to be equity. When you have a public company, the equity is liquid... But equity is gonna be the biggest piece because it is not generally going to be liquid at a startup."

Critical compensation considerations include:

Public companies: Immediate liquidity of equity grants after vesting periods
Startups: Potentially higher rewards but with much higher risk and longer time horizons
Hidden factors: Check equity expiration terms (often 7 years) and whether options require purchase

Em shared her personal experience with Airbnb, which went public five years after she left: "Everything about it was very risky, but it ended up paying off pretty dramatically. I feel like all my stories are like this. Reddit is another example. When I was at Reddit in 2021, I joined, and the company immediately became a $15 billion company based on a recent round of investing. And then just four months later, Fidelity downgraded it to 3.5 billion."

5. The Motivation for Company Transitions

A fundamental difference exists in why candidates make moves between different types of companies:

"These smart people want to solve hard, complex problems that don't exist at Meta and Google. They only exist at these early-stage startups... instead of adding features or fine-tuning something else, then you can go and own the building of a new product from zero-to-one."

Different motivational factors include:

Big Tech to Startup: The opportunity to build something new and own its development
Startup to Big Tech: Stability, resources, and scaling knowledge
Balancing factors: Em acknowledges the significant risk: "I've got a family of five, we're living in the Bay Area, I won't have equity for five, 10, 15 years, can I do that? That's a big, ... risky move."

When interviewing, be prepared to clearly articulate your motivation for making a transition. Hiring managers are inherently skeptical of candidates moving between these different environments.

6. How to Evaluate Company Health

Em recommends different evaluation approaches depending on the company stage:

"Some of the things that are really important to me is the team, the day-to-day. I want to know who I'm working with. I want a smart, I want a courageous team. I want a generous, kind team where I can be my best self."

For business health assessment:

For startups: Ask about product-market fit, funding runway, and growth trajectory
For established companies: Research team structure, career advancement history, and workload expectations
Universally important: "Does the product resonate with you? First of all, do you understand it?"

Em emphasizes that you don't need specialized knowledge to ask good evaluation questions: "These are not complex questions that you need an economics degree to understand... These are just a couple of indicators that VCs use as they're evaluating companies."

7. The Skills Evolution Landscape

Technical skills requirements differ significantly and evolve at different rates:

"This skill set is changing, compensation's changing, skill sets changing, everything's changing. And the rate of change is also, as we all know, it's increasing."

Em highlighted how quickly technology stacks shift: "When I was at Airbnb, the engineering team changed from mobile native to over to React. React was brand new.... AI is impacting that dramatically."

Key differences in skills expectations:

Startups: Value adaptability and learning new technologies rapidly
Established companies Often have legacy systems requiring specialized knowledge
For all candidates: Continuous learning is vital, as Em shared: "One of the hiring managers would ask all the candidates something that they've learned new in the last 12 months."

Today's candidates must demonstrate curiosity and learning agility regardless of company size, but startups typically demand much faster adaptation to emerging technologies.

8. Resume and Presentation Differences

Em offered candid advice on the stark differences in effective presentation across company environments:

"I'm looking at resumes all day, and so my brain is trained to look for the requirements of the role... If you include a lot more information than that that's not relevant to any of that, it's going to be really hard for me or anyone to see if you're qualified for the job or not."

Specific presentation differences:

For big tech: Emphasize specialized expertise, education credentials, and structured accomplishments
For startups: Highlight versatility, broad skill sets, and self-driven achievements
A common mistake: "When someone has a resume, and I just looked at one this morning, and I was like, I can't tell what's going on here. It's when you have a job, but then at the same time, you have like six other jobs." You should make sure that any experience listed ties back into the job you're applying to or on your profile, the role you want next. If it doesn't, you should remove it.

Em also recommends maintaining an updated LinkedIn profile during job searches across all environments: "When I see a candidate that doesn't have a LinkedIn profile, it doesn't make it feel like they're a real candidate."

Em's Favorite Interview Question

When asked about her favorite interview question, Em revealed a perfect illustration of her approach to matching candidates with the right environment:

"My favorite question is, what do you want to do next? What would be the ideal thing for you to do?... I get to find out what people do. I get to see what success looks like. I get to see how people thrive."

This speaks to the heart of great recruiting—connecting talented people with environments where they can excel, whether that's a structured tech giant or an emerging startup with unlimited potential.

By understanding these eight critical differences, you can better navigate the complex tech ecosystem and position yourself for success by finding the environment that best matches your skills, working style, and career aspirations.

This article summarizes key points from Wellfound's 'Ask a Recruiter' Q&A session featuring Em Rhodenbaugh. To find out more candidate tips, check out other 'Ask a Recruiter' sessions on the YouTube playlist here.