Ask HN: How comfortable is your FAANG job?
2 comments
FAANGs are not homogeneous monoliths nor do they have a Borg-like hivemind. Your experience at a FAANG company will vary greatly from team to team, let alone between FAANGs.
I will say that the FAANGs are much like the transition many of us experienced from high school to college: the bottom two-thirds of the talent spectrum are not there and where we might have been top of the class in HS, we may find that we are merely average or even, sadly, significantly below average. Also, since the financial rewards are much, much greater, competition between individuals is correspondingly greater, along with all the negatives that implies. Depending on your level of technical ability and political / social skills, you may indeed find yourself working harder or fighting harder for promotions than you would at a non-FAANG company.
I will say that the FAANGs are much like the transition many of us experienced from high school to college: the bottom two-thirds of the talent spectrum are not there and where we might have been top of the class in HS, we may find that we are merely average or even, sadly, significantly below average. Also, since the financial rewards are much, much greater, competition between individuals is correspondingly greater, along with all the negatives that implies. Depending on your level of technical ability and political / social skills, you may indeed find yourself working harder or fighting harder for promotions than you would at a non-FAANG company.
My experience at a FAANG (Google) was about what I expected. I felt like a small fish in a VERY
large pond (full of very smart fish) and I felt like the work I did there was more "cog in the
machine" work than truly impactful work. I also felt that the plum projects were all in Mountain
View, which was not at all what I wanted to do (in fact, I was trying to move to Austin with them).
That said, they are big companies, so YMWV. Some people were having a great time there, which was assisted by their really good set of benefits.
That said, they are big companies, so YMWV. Some people were having a great time there, which was assisted by their really good set of benefits.
Working with hugely profitable companies, we can charge $200k for a project, and it's relatively lax, expectations are reasonable, and deadlines are flexible. Even if it's a total flop, it's only $200k and they can write it off as an experiment. Working with far less profitable companies (within the same sector), even our $50k projects are miserable, scope-creeping, infighting experiences where the employees will try to extract maximum value from us while also trying to claim credit for the work (to obtain promotions and raises, which are limited due to the aforementioned limited profitability).
So I'm curious to learn about your personal experiences working at these companies that we generally consider to be hugely successful. I'm sure there is massive variation amongst different teams and projects, but I'm interested nonetheless. Are you still working against tight deadlines and fighting for promotions? Or are you enough of a cog that you can get by while doing the absolute bare minimum to get your annual raise? How does your job now compare to your previous experiences?