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Outside of FAANG, do you frequently find candidates who stick around that long at companies?

decafninja 5y ago
Yes, there are still many. The reasons can be varied. A lot of times the person might just like where they are doing what they do. Or at least are not unhappy enough to experience the disruption of looking for a new job. Increasingly, talking to friends and colleagues who are also SWEs, the leetcode interview process is also seen as daunting and a huge barrier that can make someone think twice about switching jobs. I'd say a FAANG (or similar tech company) engineer is more likely to move - and be capable of moving - than someone at a non tech company.
- wyclif 5y ago
  the leetcode interview process is also seen as daunting and a huge barrier that can make someone think twice about switching jobs There's a lot of truth to this, but the result is that the inertia effect acts as a form of retention for FAANGs. This has only increased since they are losing their ability to maintain anti-poaching agreements.
bcrosby95 5y ago
Anecdotally, I've worked at the same small company for around 15 years now. Base pay isn't FAANG competitive. But I get a decent percentage of new projects (7%), not all are successful though of course. It might fall short even with that factored in, but I've made enough such that I could have retired in my mid 30's if I didn't have kids. I like what I do, I like who I work with, I get to work from home, and we have had a variety of projects over the years so things stay fairly fresh. I might be able to make more if I landed a job at a hot new startup or FAANG. But I might also hate working there. Doesn't seem worth the bother given I'm pretty happy here.
mavelikara 5y ago
> Outside of FAANG, do you frequently find candidates who stick around that long at companies? Not the person you asked the question, but yes. The most successful startups to IPO in the last 20 years include B2B companies like Service Now, Datadog, Crowdstrike, Workday, Cloudflare, Palo Alto Networks, Zscaler etc. Count some others like MongoDB, AppDynamics, New Relic, Rubrik, Nutanix etc. These companies don't trend on Twitter, or are included in FAANG, but have had long periods of growth. Many employees in those companies have stayed at those firms and have grown in their careers. (Disclosure: I worked at AppDynamics for ~10 years).

Yes, there are still many. The reasons can be varied. A lot of times the person might just like where they are doing what they do. Or at least are not unhappy enough to experience the disruption of looking for a new job. Increasingly, talking to friends and colleagues who are also SWEs, the leetcode interview process is also seen as daunting and a huge barrier that can make someone think twice about switching jobs. I'd say a FAANG (or similar tech company) engineer is more likely to move - and be capable of moving - than someone at a non tech company.

wyclif 5y ago
the leetcode interview process is also seen as daunting and a huge barrier that can make someone think twice about switching jobs There's a lot of truth to this, but the result is that the inertia effect acts as a form of retention for FAANGs. This has only increased since they are losing their ability to maintain anti-poaching agreements.

bcrosby95 5y ago

Anecdotally, I've worked at the same small company for around 15 years now. Base pay isn't FAANG competitive. But I get a decent percentage of new projects (7%), not all are successful though of course. It might fall short even with that factored in, but I've made enough such that I could have retired in my mid 30's if I didn't have kids. I like what I do, I like who I work with, I get to work from home, and we have had a variety of projects over the years so things stay fairly fresh. I might be able to make more if I landed a job at a hot new startup or FAANG. But I might also hate working there. Doesn't seem worth the bother given I'm pretty happy here.

mavelikara 5y ago

> Outside of FAANG, do you frequently find candidates who stick around that long at companies? Not the person you asked the question, but yes. The most successful startups to IPO in the last 20 years include B2B companies like Service Now, Datadog, Crowdstrike, Workday, Cloudflare, Palo Alto Networks, Zscaler etc. Count some others like MongoDB, AppDynamics, New Relic, Rubrik, Nutanix etc. These companies don't trend on Twitter, or are included in FAANG, but have had long periods of growth. Many employees in those companies have stayed at those firms and have grown in their careers. (Disclosure: I worked at AppDynamics for ~10 years).