4 ms·

This is an entirely subjective take, but in the last few years FB seem to have evolved from one the coolest places for an engineer to being at the bottom of FAA

by mkl95 5y ago

This is an entirely subjective take, but in the last few years FB seem to have evolved from one the coolest places for an engineer to being at the bottom of FAANG. I wonder if a significant amount of those people are looking for positions at Google/Amazon or they are taking their expertise somewhere else.

campbel 5y ago
I've never understood obsession with FAANG. Seems like it is only meaningful to younger folks in the industry looking to establish themselves. You want FAANG on your resume so you can get the job you really want.
- marstall 5y ago
  they pay 2-3x.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- throwawaysea 5y ago
  The obsession is simply around getting a high pay and great benefits at a very stable company. FAANG seems like a high confidence path to more money than employees probably ever wanted or expected. The reasons behind that are worth considering. We live in an economy that is increasingly consolidated, where massive capital sits with a few giants, where new innovators are easily copied by those giants, where network effects and shady practices discourage new competition. If we had a more competitive economy, with functioning anti trust law, and protections for small innovators rather than giant conglomerates, I think talent might be distributed differently. But otherwise it is rational to look at the situation, realize nothing will be done, and to just work at FAANG and let the dollars roll in.
- meowkit 5y ago
  Same obsession as with the Ivy's/top schools. Its a status marker/credential.
  - tech_tuna 5y ago
    Exactly this, plus high pay. However, I've known lots of people who have worked at FAANG companies and while they tend to hire extremely bright people that doesn't correlate with everyone doing interesting work. As a friend put it, "yeah, I got to work at Google but I spent 3 years fixing obscure bugs in the Dart engine for Chrome." Also, keep in mind that the FAANG companies sort of have to pay a ton because most engineers would likely rather work at a startup where they get to be big fish in a small pond and build something new.
    - Jensson 5y ago
      > while they tend to hire extremely bright people that doesn't correlate with everyone doing interesting work. If you are the dumbest person in the room then you will become the last pick for interesting projects, and someone has to do all the boring work.
dustingetz 5y ago
all of fang has lost brand power, all sufficiently large megacorps are clusterfucks
- fallingknife 5y ago
  That's just not true (well the clusterfuck part is). Big tech dominates the top of the list for most well regarded brands. https://fortune.com/worlds-most-admired-companies/ https://fortune.com/worlds-most-admired-companies/ https://morningconsult.com/most-loved-brands-2020/ https://morningconsult.com/most-loved-brands-2020/
  - echelon 5y ago
    Startups stepping into the unicorn status territory are a much better bet. Their stock grants have value since the companies are getting closer to exit, and there's a real chance that the stock will 10-100X. Your four year vest of $250k could be worth $2.5M - $25M in the future. These are the best jobs. They can be extremely lucrative, and the work is exciting and palpable. Scaling a company to the point of IPO is fun. Look at the market the company is entering. How big? Is the company growing like crazy? What's the competition? How's the leadership and culture? And do you like the work?
    - mellavora 5y ago
      If you can find one... I might be one of the lucky few who has (ask me in 1.5 years), but I've seen many promising startups fail. I'm seriously considering moving to FANG for perceived stability and income. Stock which might 10x vs stock which at least has a market value.
  - lordnacho 5y ago
    These kinds of studies have all sorts of issues. The main one is it's cheap to answer a study. Nobody has any skin in the game. What do you think of Apple? Oh great phones, very nice UX. Where it matters is when you're asked to spend money, for one. And the other one is what we're discussing here, where do you want to work? The natural experiment of choice is more telling than what a bunch of people can recall about some name that they barely know anything about.
Der_Einzige 5y ago
Oh delusional amazonians thinking they can successfully prevent those in the know for lobbying for their removal from "FAANG". Amazon is by far the lowest of the FAANG. Horrific WLB, worse pay than all others listed (esp the vesting schedule), toxic culture, terrible benefits (lol bananas). Don't delude yourself, Facebook is a great place to work and actually deserves to stay in the acronym
- filoleg 5y ago
  Fully agreed with your comment, but I wanted to correct one small thing regarding vesting schedule. Recently, it seems like Amazon started to offset their poor vesting schedule in the first 2 years by giving the matching amount of cash bonus for those years of reduced vest. So technically, you still get only 5%/15% vested during your first two years, but with enough cash bonus for those two years to essentially make your "vest amount" equal to the real vest during years 3 and 4. Note: I haven't done this myself as I am not interviewing with Amazon for all the other reasons you listed, but I had a few friends who interviewed with them in the past year. At first, I thought it was just a unique situation my friends managed to negotiate for themselves. But after checking the usual sources (r/cscareerquestions and a few other places online), it seems like my friends were far from being unique in that aspect, as I saw quite a few people reporting the same cash-bonus-offset method over the past year. From what I saw, it seems like a new thing they started doing at some point during COVID.
  - Infinitesimus 5y ago
    Amazon has had a large cash comp for years 1 and 2 for a very long time. It's not new because of covid at all.
    - filoleg 5y ago
      My bad, it could have been not new, but I've literally never heard of it until last year. Could have definitely been just me living under a rock, so I appreciate the clarification.
raydev 5y ago
While I agree that FB has fallen down the list, Amazon will have to improve a lot to get bumped from the bottom of the list. Hiring bar at Amazon is lower, WLB widely recognized as terrible, constant stack ranking horror stories, etc.
- kayodelycaon 5y ago
  When I lived in Seattle a decade ago, I went to some kind of Amazon-sponsored event and multiple programmers who were working for Amazon at the time quietly told me the place was hell and not to apply.
MertsA 5y ago
Amazon is the FAANG of last resort where engineers go to do their penance and show that they can put up with a year of working for a terrible employer. Their company culture is garbage among engineers and are notorious for abysmal practices such as hiring people for the sole purpose of having someone to fire so some middle manager can hit their unregretted attrition metrics. Amazon does cool work, but after talking about it with friends and coworkers who have worked there and one that is trying to leave I would never work at such a terrible company.

by mkl95 5y ago

campbel 5y ago

I've never understood obsession with FAANG. Seems like it is only meaningful to younger folks in the industry looking to establish themselves. You want FAANG on your resume so you can get the job you really want.

marstall 5y ago
they pay 2-3x.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
throwawaysea 5y ago
The obsession is simply around getting a high pay and great benefits at a very stable company. FAANG seems like a high confidence path to more money than employees probably ever wanted or expected. The reasons behind that are worth considering. We live in an economy that is increasingly consolidated, where massive capital sits with a few giants, where new innovators are easily copied by those giants, where network effects and shady practices discourage new competition. If we had a more competitive economy, with functioning anti trust law, and protections for small innovators rather than giant conglomerates, I think talent might be distributed differently. But otherwise it is rational to look at the situation, realize nothing will be done, and to just work at FAANG and let the dollars roll in.
meowkit 5y ago
Same obsession as with the Ivy's/top schools. Its a status marker/credential.
- tech_tuna 5y ago
  Exactly this, plus high pay. However, I've known lots of people who have worked at FAANG companies and while they tend to hire extremely bright people that doesn't correlate with everyone doing interesting work. As a friend put it, "yeah, I got to work at Google but I spent 3 years fixing obscure bugs in the Dart engine for Chrome." Also, keep in mind that the FAANG companies sort of have to pay a ton because most engineers would likely rather work at a startup where they get to be big fish in a small pond and build something new.
  - Jensson 5y ago
    > while they tend to hire extremely bright people that doesn't correlate with everyone doing interesting work. If you are the dumbest person in the room then you will become the last pick for interesting projects, and someone has to do all the boring work.

dustingetz 5y ago

all of fang has lost brand power, all sufficiently large megacorps are clusterfucks

fallingknife 5y ago
That's just not true (well the clusterfuck part is). Big tech dominates the top of the list for most well regarded brands. https://fortune.com/worlds-most-admired-companies/ https://fortune.com/worlds-most-admired-companies/ https://morningconsult.com/most-loved-brands-2020/ https://morningconsult.com/most-loved-brands-2020/
- echelon 5y ago
  Startups stepping into the unicorn status territory are a much better bet. Their stock grants have value since the companies are getting closer to exit, and there's a real chance that the stock will 10-100X. Your four year vest of $250k could be worth $2.5M - $25M in the future. These are the best jobs. They can be extremely lucrative, and the work is exciting and palpable. Scaling a company to the point of IPO is fun. Look at the market the company is entering. How big? Is the company growing like crazy? What's the competition? How's the leadership and culture? And do you like the work?
  - mellavora 5y ago
    If you can find one... I might be one of the lucky few who has (ask me in 1.5 years), but I've seen many promising startups fail. I'm seriously considering moving to FANG for perceived stability and income. Stock which might 10x vs stock which at least has a market value.
- lordnacho 5y ago
  These kinds of studies have all sorts of issues. The main one is it's cheap to answer a study. Nobody has any skin in the game. What do you think of Apple? Oh great phones, very nice UX. Where it matters is when you're asked to spend money, for one. And the other one is what we're discussing here, where do you want to work? The natural experiment of choice is more telling than what a bunch of people can recall about some name that they barely know anything about.

Der_Einzige 5y ago

Oh delusional amazonians thinking they can successfully prevent those in the know for lobbying for their removal from "FAANG". Amazon is by far the lowest of the FAANG. Horrific WLB, worse pay than all others listed (esp the vesting schedule), toxic culture, terrible benefits (lol bananas). Don't delude yourself, Facebook is a great place to work and actually deserves to stay in the acronym

filoleg 5y ago
Fully agreed with your comment, but I wanted to correct one small thing regarding vesting schedule. Recently, it seems like Amazon started to offset their poor vesting schedule in the first 2 years by giving the matching amount of cash bonus for those years of reduced vest. So technically, you still get only 5%/15% vested during your first two years, but with enough cash bonus for those two years to essentially make your "vest amount" equal to the real vest during years 3 and 4. Note: I haven't done this myself as I am not interviewing with Amazon for all the other reasons you listed, but I had a few friends who interviewed with them in the past year. At first, I thought it was just a unique situation my friends managed to negotiate for themselves. But after checking the usual sources (r/cscareerquestions and a few other places online), it seems like my friends were far from being unique in that aspect, as I saw quite a few people reporting the same cash-bonus-offset method over the past year. From what I saw, it seems like a new thing they started doing at some point during COVID.
- Infinitesimus 5y ago
  Amazon has had a large cash comp for years 1 and 2 for a very long time. It's not new because of covid at all.
  - filoleg 5y ago
    My bad, it could have been not new, but I've literally never heard of it until last year. Could have definitely been just me living under a rock, so I appreciate the clarification.

raydev 5y ago

While I agree that FB has fallen down the list, Amazon will have to improve a lot to get bumped from the bottom of the list. Hiring bar at Amazon is lower, WLB widely recognized as terrible, constant stack ranking horror stories, etc.

kayodelycaon 5y ago
When I lived in Seattle a decade ago, I went to some kind of Amazon-sponsored event and multiple programmers who were working for Amazon at the time quietly told me the place was hell and not to apply.

MertsA 5y ago

Amazon is the FAANG of last resort where engineers go to do their penance and show that they can put up with a year of working for a terrible employer. Their company culture is garbage among engineers and are notorious for abysmal practices such as hiring people for the sole purpose of having someone to fire so some middle manager can hit their unregretted attrition metrics. Amazon does cool work, but after talking about it with friends and coworkers who have worked there and one that is trying to leave I would never work at such a terrible company.