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I am trying to get a FAANG level job. People have always said if I keep trying it's within reach. I have no credentialist upbringing. There are other things t

I am trying to get a FAANG level job. People have always said if I keep trying it's within reach. I have no credentialist upbringing. There are other things that are limiting me. I have no network and bad social skills.

tubularhells 6y ago
Have you ever built a product yourself? I will be honest with you, I just use the python standard library for algorithms. I don't even remember what kind of sorts there are. They don't matter much in the grand scheme of things. What matters is whether you can build and ship something. This is how Valve evaluates applying engineers too, by the way. Finished project list first.
AnimalMuppet 6y ago
I'm not sure. Programming is more within reach than FAANG is. Don't look at "getting into FAANG" as equivalent to "able to program". They are not at all the same. I don't make FAANG money, but I make really good money. It's not enough to retire at 40, but it's enough to have a pretty nice life.
- QuitProgramming 6y ago
  I'm only interested in FAANG money and being able to retire early. Those are my goals.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - ojhughes 6y ago
    Sounds like you have the wrong motivations for a career in software engineering. No offence but I wouldn’t want to work with someone who is purely in it for the money and people can easily suss out that kind of attitude. If you don’t have passion for the job it’s going to be hard to succeed in your goals
    - ajkdhcb2 6y ago
      Why would someone with passion for software choose to work at repugnant FAANG companies?
      - globular-toast 6y ago
        Because you get paid more than other companies and ethics is low on the list of priorities.
        blaser-waffle 6y ago
        Considerably more, in some cases. Not a lot of employment options like that anywhere and in any field, outside of being an executive, pro athlete, or other one-off / superlative opportunity. And even if you're not an E6 or "Principal" or something, the Big Name on a resume opens doors later.
      - lookACamel 6y ago
        Money.
  - JabavuAdams 6y ago
    There are many ways to retire early. Entrepreneurship, investing, hitting the jackpot at a startup. This FAANG focus may actually be detracting from your goal. EDIT N> I see I might have misunderstood your post. You've been working on leetcode while at school and at your first job? Therefore the gap between the end of your first job and now is not five years? Okay, that's great! So ignore this part... <<< Think of the opportunity cost of not making (I assume) decent money as a programmer at the start of your career. With five years of programming experience on the job, you might have been able to land a team lead or high-level individual contributor role, with all the compensation and marketable skills that come with. Extra disposable income invested in low-risk equities like index funds over the last five years would have had a huge return. >>> Or, for that matter with a few years experience on real projects at real shops, you would have the skills that might actually get you into FAANG now. This is actually making me a bit angry at Leetcode for possibly misrepresenting the utility or importance of their product. Given all that you've said, I would suggest getting out there and getting any programming job that isn't losing you money to build up your finances, resume, and network. You had one bad experience -- don't let it define you. People get fired because their manager had a fight with their partner the night before. There's a huge amount of random noise, and FAANG, leetcode scores, even performance reviews are not a particularly strong reflection on you or good estimators of your future prospects. This school -> leetcode -> FAANG pipeline simply isn't how the real world works. Sorry! EDIT> Social skills are learnable to at least a competent level, and the number one way to get contacts is to work more jobs. I used to be too shy to hand out my business card -- now it's super easy. A friend of mine is neuro-atypical and has massive social anxiety, but has worked as a bartender in the past -- all just scripts and social "macros". EDIT2> Good Luck! Don't give up on programming, but take care of yourself, and maybe take a break. Maybe work on a coding project that you find interesting but that has no goal or ulterior motive. EDIT N+1> It was typical when I graduated to do anything and everything to get 2 years of professional experience, and then to go for your desired job. The experience outweighed any other concern w.r.t hiring. So I definitely wouldn't give up after one bad experience. Also, I suggest you recalibrate your expectations to work up to FAANG by getting jobs at other companies first. It's almost certain that real on-the-job experience will count for much more than scores on some programming site.
    - 6y ago
  - robotron 6y ago
    > only interested in FAANG money and being able to retire early That should tell you the problem.
  - muzani 6y ago
    Non-FAANG/Leetcode money is very good too. Check out http://levels.fyi http://levels.fyi or AngelList and you'll probably find a few that have different recruiting methods. If you have the grit to stick it out, you could consider working with legacy code too.
  - beforeolives 6y ago
    > I'm only interested in FAANG money and being able to retire early. Those are my goals. I think you should quit then. Just give up. It's not going to happen. Certainly not the way you're going about it.
  - globular-toast 6y ago
    There's your problem then. I have the same goals. I've been reading every "how to be a CEO" book I can find and I've written to every Fortune 500 asking to be their CEO. I have no interest in what any of these companies do. I have so far not received a single reply, so I guess it's time to make a post whinging about that on HN.
  - UncleMeat 6y ago
    Why do you think that leetcode was the core problem here? You got fired for performance reasons at a less competitive business. You spent thousands of hours learning the wrong thing.
    - QuitProgramming 6y ago
      I'm saying the skill set and talent that allows one to be good at Leetcode and on the job programming are correlated and I am lacking in both.
- karmakaze 6y ago
  OT: why do we still say FAANG and not FAAMG? It seems to me that MS is much more in the same league than Netflix.
tkiolp4 6y ago
FAANGs are overrated.
mleonhard 6y ago
There are two paths into FAANG entry-level jobs: 1. Graduate from a top school 2. Work at non-FAANG companies for several years and develop strong software engineering skills: attention to detail, deep knowledge of one language, writing and maintaining unit tests and integration tests, giving and receiving code reviews, being oncall, sitting in on requirements meetings with customers, spending months implementing features, seeing some of them fail in production or fail with users, and deploying and owning a small service and being the go-to person on the team for it. This takes several years. Almost nobody can get a FAANG job without this experience. Grinding leetcode is something to do for 2-3 weeks before your FAANG interview to brush up on algorithms. Leetcode cannot give you software engineering experience that FAANG interviewers look for. It's really good that you recognize your bad social skills. You can improve them with effort. Good luck!
- asidiali 6y ago
  This is a spot on take! Well said.

tubularhells 6y ago

Have you ever built a product yourself? I will be honest with you, I just use the python standard library for algorithms. I don't even remember what kind of sorts there are. They don't matter much in the grand scheme of things. What matters is whether you can build and ship something. This is how Valve evaluates applying engineers too, by the way. Finished project list first.

AnimalMuppet 6y ago

I'm not sure. Programming is more within reach than FAANG is. Don't look at "getting into FAANG" as equivalent to "able to program". They are not at all the same. I don't make FAANG money, but I make really good money. It's not enough to retire at 40, but it's enough to have a pretty nice life.

QuitProgramming 6y ago
I'm only interested in FAANG money and being able to retire early. Those are my goals.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- ojhughes 6y ago
  Sounds like you have the wrong motivations for a career in software engineering. No offence but I wouldn’t want to work with someone who is purely in it for the money and people can easily suss out that kind of attitude. If you don’t have passion for the job it’s going to be hard to succeed in your goals
  - ajkdhcb2 6y ago
    Why would someone with passion for software choose to work at repugnant FAANG companies?
    - globular-toast 6y ago
      Because you get paid more than other companies and ethics is low on the list of priorities.
      - blaser-waffle 6y ago
        Considerably more, in some cases. Not a lot of employment options like that anywhere and in any field, outside of being an executive, pro athlete, or other one-off / superlative opportunity. And even if you're not an E6 or "Principal" or something, the Big Name on a resume opens doors later.
    - lookACamel 6y ago
      Money.
- JabavuAdams 6y ago
  There are many ways to retire early. Entrepreneurship, investing, hitting the jackpot at a startup. This FAANG focus may actually be detracting from your goal. EDIT N> I see I might have misunderstood your post. You've been working on leetcode while at school and at your first job? Therefore the gap between the end of your first job and now is not five years? Okay, that's great! So ignore this part... <<< Think of the opportunity cost of not making (I assume) decent money as a programmer at the start of your career. With five years of programming experience on the job, you might have been able to land a team lead or high-level individual contributor role, with all the compensation and marketable skills that come with. Extra disposable income invested in low-risk equities like index funds over the last five years would have had a huge return. >>> Or, for that matter with a few years experience on real projects at real shops, you would have the skills that might actually get you into FAANG now. This is actually making me a bit angry at Leetcode for possibly misrepresenting the utility or importance of their product. Given all that you've said, I would suggest getting out there and getting any programming job that isn't losing you money to build up your finances, resume, and network. You had one bad experience -- don't let it define you. People get fired because their manager had a fight with their partner the night before. There's a huge amount of random noise, and FAANG, leetcode scores, even performance reviews are not a particularly strong reflection on you or good estimators of your future prospects. This school -> leetcode -> FAANG pipeline simply isn't how the real world works. Sorry! EDIT> Social skills are learnable to at least a competent level, and the number one way to get contacts is to work more jobs. I used to be too shy to hand out my business card -- now it's super easy. A friend of mine is neuro-atypical and has massive social anxiety, but has worked as a bartender in the past -- all just scripts and social "macros". EDIT2> Good Luck! Don't give up on programming, but take care of yourself, and maybe take a break. Maybe work on a coding project that you find interesting but that has no goal or ulterior motive. EDIT N+1> It was typical when I graduated to do anything and everything to get 2 years of professional experience, and then to go for your desired job. The experience outweighed any other concern w.r.t hiring. So I definitely wouldn't give up after one bad experience. Also, I suggest you recalibrate your expectations to work up to FAANG by getting jobs at other companies first. It's almost certain that real on-the-job experience will count for much more than scores on some programming site.
  - 6y ago
- robotron 6y ago
  > only interested in FAANG money and being able to retire early That should tell you the problem.
- muzani 6y ago
  Non-FAANG/Leetcode money is very good too. Check out http://levels.fyi http://levels.fyi or AngelList and you'll probably find a few that have different recruiting methods. If you have the grit to stick it out, you could consider working with legacy code too.
- beforeolives 6y ago
  > I'm only interested in FAANG money and being able to retire early. Those are my goals. I think you should quit then. Just give up. It's not going to happen. Certainly not the way you're going about it.
- globular-toast 6y ago
  There's your problem then. I have the same goals. I've been reading every "how to be a CEO" book I can find and I've written to every Fortune 500 asking to be their CEO. I have no interest in what any of these companies do. I have so far not received a single reply, so I guess it's time to make a post whinging about that on HN.
- UncleMeat 6y ago
  Why do you think that leetcode was the core problem here? You got fired for performance reasons at a less competitive business. You spent thousands of hours learning the wrong thing.
  - QuitProgramming 6y ago
    I'm saying the skill set and talent that allows one to be good at Leetcode and on the job programming are correlated and I am lacking in both.
karmakaze 6y ago
OT: why do we still say FAANG and not FAAMG? It seems to me that MS is much more in the same league than Netflix.

tkiolp4 6y ago

FAANGs are overrated.

mleonhard 6y ago

There are two paths into FAANG entry-level jobs: 1. Graduate from a top school 2. Work at non-FAANG companies for several years and develop strong software engineering skills: attention to detail, deep knowledge of one language, writing and maintaining unit tests and integration tests, giving and receiving code reviews, being oncall, sitting in on requirements meetings with customers, spending months implementing features, seeing some of them fail in production or fail with users, and deploying and owning a small service and being the go-to person on the team for it. This takes several years. Almost nobody can get a FAANG job without this experience. Grinding leetcode is something to do for 2-3 weeks before your FAANG interview to brush up on algorithms. Leetcode cannot give you software engineering experience that FAANG interviewers look for. It's really good that you recognize your bad social skills. You can improve them with effort. Good luck!

asidiali 6y ago
This is a spot on take! Well said.