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My impression is that most people who start at a FAANG company are pretty hard-working but over time become less so, as they realize that it doesn't make much o

My impression is that most people who start at a FAANG company are pretty hard-working but over time become less so, as they realize that it doesn't make much of a difference how hard they work and as they get too comfortable with the various benefits that working at a large company provides. Personally that's what I find kind of depressing, seeing highly-motivated people having their potential sapped by working on contrived pillars instead of using their talents to make cool and useful stuff.

xwdv 4y ago
Potential for what? Working very hard for even less pay?
- nicoburns 4y ago
  Potential to contribute meaningful improvements to society. It's easy to lose track of in the modern world, but our work is supposed to actually produce value in the real non-monetary sense of the word.
  - UncleMeat 4y ago
    I mean, it isn't like the common alternative to the megacorps are all society-improving companies. Trading firms, various financial software companies, gig economy apps, crypto companies, and developer tools companies tend to be the things that recruit me most frequently. Not exactly companies that I feel are providing a lot of benefit to people. Just more efficient ways of being extractive or helping other companies be extractive.
    - indigochill 4y ago
      I wonder what would happen if more software engineers viewed themselves like landscapers/plumbers/electricians. That is, you have a skill, people in your community need it, now you just need to find those people. A friend of mine used to work in the bizdev side of a non-profit, managing donations and tracking groups to thank and follow-up with and so on. Incidentally she started complaining about how bad the user experience of the software she was using was, which got my ears tingling. What if people in her position at other non-profits had the same experience to the extent that I could distribute the cost of developing something this group of users found value in (increased efficiency/productivity) that their organizations would be willing to switch to? I ended up not following through for personal reasons and there are some of the normal "cost of switching" stuff one would have to get past to make this work, but little things like this wouldn't generate hockey-stick revenue but could bring value to the world. If the Thibault can make a decent living making a good free open source chess website or Tarn can make a decent living making the most in-depth fantasy world simulator the world's ever seen, surely there are other modest opportunities out there to be the change we want to see in the world (interestingly both examples here live on donations rather than selling a service/product).
      - UncleMeat 4y ago
        To me, the big difference is that I believe that I can have a greater positive impact by working at one of these megacorps and donating a ton of money to charity. Where I work, I am not generating money for my employer but helping improve an external software ecosystem. This I feel is a small positive thing at a company that might be a net harm to the world. But the pay is way way way way higher than what I could get by building a website for the local food bank. Instead, I can donate five or six figures annually to charitable causes and still come out ahead for my own income.
        otachack 4y ago
        If you're serious about it I hope you and everyone else that says this commit by picking an issue of society you're passionate about, researching charitable foundations, and contributing a recurring donation that hits the range of money you're willing to part with. You should also keep tuned in to the organization (and those that receive grants from them) on what impact your helping create to build reinforcement.
        UncleMeat 4y ago
        I do. I donate a very large amount of money to an organization that I am deeply involved with that does a lot of good efficiently and effectively. I'm sure that a lot of people just use this as a justification and don't actually follow through but I really am donating an amount of money that would be completely infeasible if I was instead employed by this organization.
      - zztop44 4y ago
        I make a good living building software for nonprofits. It’s true there are plenty of opportunities for better software out there. But, as is often the case, understanding the industry helps. I worked for 10 years at nonprofits in non-developer roles and that experience massively increases my value as a developer to my clients. Enthusiasm and being able to code are great, but making an effort to understand the problem space is even more valuable.
      - 4y ago
  - pclmulqdq 4y ago
    I think a lot of people who work at a FAANG don't see it that way. Adding one small feature to Facebook or Google is going to have a small impact on billions of lives, while a new SaaS app has a big impact on hundreds. Of course, there is another group whose attitude is more along the lines of, "fuck society, pay me more."
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - parineum 4y ago
    Monetary value is real value. That's literally the entire point of money, a physical and finite object to represent the value people place in the items they purchase. Where you spend your time and money is what you value.
    - tomashubelbauer 4y ago
      I spend a lot of my spare time in VS Code working on stuff that never goes public or makes a single cent. I value that time a lot. I freaking love writing code and prorotyping my random ideas. This is completely outside the realm of the monetary. Similarly, I like taking walks, especially in the fall and winter. No one pays me to do it and I don't have to pay to do it. I am not saying what you said is wrong, but it is certainly incomplete.
      - parineum 4y ago
        Money is compensation for your free time spent doing things you don't want to do. Your free time spent is valued at the opportunity cost of using it not making money. Money isn't the only source of value but it is directly related to both how much time you spend earning it and what you choose to spend it on. Money is just the common language you and I use to express what we personally value.
        nicoburns 4y ago
        > Money is just the common language you and I use to express what we personally value. It is, but we do not have equal opportunity to express that value. Some people have thousands of times more money than others, and thus the things they value are over-represented by monetary value. Furthermore, due to marginal utility, the things we first spend money on tend to much more valuable to us than the things we spend extra spare money on, the money spent by the rich tend to be less representative of actual value than that spent by the poor. As that is a huge proportion of the total money spent in our current society (see for example https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/jan/21/world-26-richest-people-own-as-much-as-poorest-50-per-cent-oxfam-report https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/jan/21/world-26-ri...), money ends up not being that great a measure of true value as defined by the things that people want and need.
  - nisegami 4y ago
    Source?
  - Bakary 4y ago
    Working for a FAANG provides negative value since it increases the power of shady adtech oligopolies
  - spfzero 4y ago
    Isn't the entire purpose of money, to represent value?
matwood 4y ago
This is just a big company thing. The larger the company, the less impact any single individual typically has.
flippinburgers 4y ago
Better than working hard at a startup that fails after several years of being severely underpaid.
- papito 4y ago
  One benefit of working at a small and even failing startup is that you get to do a lot of things, wear many hats, and ultimately learn a ton. It's rewarding. In a large tech behemoth, you are just a code monkey, where every day is just 90% communication and 10% some work that at the end of the day seems meaningless.
  - hustwindmaple1 4y ago
    Many ppl don't get it. Commumication is work. And it's hard work. Sometimes way harder than coding. For engineers, the more senior you get, the more communication you should be doing. In most companies, sitting in a corner and quietly writing code will not get you into director-level, however good you are.
WFHRenaissance 4y ago
I saw the greatest minds of my generation wasted on optimizing AdTech systems...
wobbly_bush 4y ago
Making cool and useful stuff is not easy and requires the right ecosystem. For example, take all the immigrants working at FAANG. They could have been working in their countries and building something cool/useful/or something more meaningful to people in their origin countries. But that's not possible, that's one of the main reasons they come to US. Within US, it is similar problem but at a smaller scale.
yodsanklai 4y ago
I can't speak for all FAANG but it hasn't been my experience. > pretty hard-working but over time become less so If people start to cruise, they may get pressured by hard-working peers and management. Of course, those who are very good may get away with it as FAANG reward impact and not work, but there are many strong engineers there, so it's very hard to stand out. And those who do are incentized to climb the ladder rather than cruise. > it doesn't make much of a difference how hard they work It's the opposite. Those who manage to have good evaluations are rewarded. > seeing highly-motivated people having their potential sapped by working on contrived pillars instead of using their talents to make cool and useful stuff There are tons of cool and useful projects in these big companies. Basically any field of CS you may be interested in is there. My experience is that people work hard when they get the job. After one year, they realize it's hard to sustain that pace and that they barely meet the expectation with all the hard work. Some leave, some get managed out, and those who stay many years are productive individuals.
- codekansas 4y ago
  Here's my mental model of FAANG life: - 1-2 years: Work hard because you feel optimistic and self-assured, working on exciting problems with smartest people in the world, lots of great resources - 2-3 years: Start to realize things aren't as great as you thought (e.g., a project you felt passionately about was junked for a random political reasons, people you thought were super smart start to just be normal coworkers, more of a premium on playing the game the right way than doing great work) but the salary and lifestyle is still attractive - 3-4 years: Many people leave to do something else, a bit more experienced but a bit more jaded. Many who stick around have figured out a niche to fill and are mainly in it for the lifestyle rather than the technical challenge Basically I wish it was more common to sustain and grow the early-days excitement and passion while developing as an engineer. I think with smaller companies there's often more self-determination for junior employees, so that when they "grow up" and start to see more problems they usually caused the problem themself, rather than having to live with someone else's problem, which makes it easier to stay excited. YMMV of course

xwdv 4y ago

Potential for what? Working very hard for even less pay?

nicoburns 4y ago
Potential to contribute meaningful improvements to society. It's easy to lose track of in the modern world, but our work is supposed to actually produce value in the real non-monetary sense of the word.
- UncleMeat 4y ago
  I mean, it isn't like the common alternative to the megacorps are all society-improving companies. Trading firms, various financial software companies, gig economy apps, crypto companies, and developer tools companies tend to be the things that recruit me most frequently. Not exactly companies that I feel are providing a lot of benefit to people. Just more efficient ways of being extractive or helping other companies be extractive.
  - indigochill 4y ago
    I wonder what would happen if more software engineers viewed themselves like landscapers/plumbers/electricians. That is, you have a skill, people in your community need it, now you just need to find those people. A friend of mine used to work in the bizdev side of a non-profit, managing donations and tracking groups to thank and follow-up with and so on. Incidentally she started complaining about how bad the user experience of the software she was using was, which got my ears tingling. What if people in her position at other non-profits had the same experience to the extent that I could distribute the cost of developing something this group of users found value in (increased efficiency/productivity) that their organizations would be willing to switch to? I ended up not following through for personal reasons and there are some of the normal "cost of switching" stuff one would have to get past to make this work, but little things like this wouldn't generate hockey-stick revenue but could bring value to the world. If the Thibault can make a decent living making a good free open source chess website or Tarn can make a decent living making the most in-depth fantasy world simulator the world's ever seen, surely there are other modest opportunities out there to be the change we want to see in the world (interestingly both examples here live on donations rather than selling a service/product).
    - UncleMeat 4y ago
      To me, the big difference is that I believe that I can have a greater positive impact by working at one of these megacorps and donating a ton of money to charity. Where I work, I am not generating money for my employer but helping improve an external software ecosystem. This I feel is a small positive thing at a company that might be a net harm to the world. But the pay is way way way way higher than what I could get by building a website for the local food bank. Instead, I can donate five or six figures annually to charitable causes and still come out ahead for my own income.
      - otachack 4y ago
        If you're serious about it I hope you and everyone else that says this commit by picking an issue of society you're passionate about, researching charitable foundations, and contributing a recurring donation that hits the range of money you're willing to part with. You should also keep tuned in to the organization (and those that receive grants from them) on what impact your helping create to build reinforcement.
        UncleMeat 4y ago
        I do. I donate a very large amount of money to an organization that I am deeply involved with that does a lot of good efficiently and effectively. I'm sure that a lot of people just use this as a justification and don't actually follow through but I really am donating an amount of money that would be completely infeasible if I was instead employed by this organization.
    - zztop44 4y ago
      I make a good living building software for nonprofits. It’s true there are plenty of opportunities for better software out there. But, as is often the case, understanding the industry helps. I worked for 10 years at nonprofits in non-developer roles and that experience massively increases my value as a developer to my clients. Enthusiasm and being able to code are great, but making an effort to understand the problem space is even more valuable.
    - 4y ago
- pclmulqdq 4y ago
  I think a lot of people who work at a FAANG don't see it that way. Adding one small feature to Facebook or Google is going to have a small impact on billions of lives, while a new SaaS app has a big impact on hundreds. Of course, there is another group whose attitude is more along the lines of, "fuck society, pay me more."
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- parineum 4y ago
  Monetary value is real value. That's literally the entire point of money, a physical and finite object to represent the value people place in the items they purchase. Where you spend your time and money is what you value.
  - tomashubelbauer 4y ago
    I spend a lot of my spare time in VS Code working on stuff that never goes public or makes a single cent. I value that time a lot. I freaking love writing code and prorotyping my random ideas. This is completely outside the realm of the monetary. Similarly, I like taking walks, especially in the fall and winter. No one pays me to do it and I don't have to pay to do it. I am not saying what you said is wrong, but it is certainly incomplete.
    - parineum 4y ago
      Money is compensation for your free time spent doing things you don't want to do. Your free time spent is valued at the opportunity cost of using it not making money. Money isn't the only source of value but it is directly related to both how much time you spend earning it and what you choose to spend it on. Money is just the common language you and I use to express what we personally value.
      - nicoburns 4y ago
        > Money is just the common language you and I use to express what we personally value. It is, but we do not have equal opportunity to express that value. Some people have thousands of times more money than others, and thus the things they value are over-represented by monetary value. Furthermore, due to marginal utility, the things we first spend money on tend to much more valuable to us than the things we spend extra spare money on, the money spent by the rich tend to be less representative of actual value than that spent by the poor. As that is a huge proportion of the total money spent in our current society (see for example https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/jan/21/world-26-richest-people-own-as-much-as-poorest-50-per-cent-oxfam-report https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/jan/21/world-26-ri...), money ends up not being that great a measure of true value as defined by the things that people want and need.
- nisegami 4y ago
  Source?
- Bakary 4y ago
  Working for a FAANG provides negative value since it increases the power of shady adtech oligopolies
- spfzero 4y ago
  Isn't the entire purpose of money, to represent value?

matwood 4y ago

This is just a big company thing. The larger the company, the less impact any single individual typically has.

flippinburgers 4y ago

Better than working hard at a startup that fails after several years of being severely underpaid.

papito 4y ago
One benefit of working at a small and even failing startup is that you get to do a lot of things, wear many hats, and ultimately learn a ton. It's rewarding. In a large tech behemoth, you are just a code monkey, where every day is just 90% communication and 10% some work that at the end of the day seems meaningless.
- hustwindmaple1 4y ago
  Many ppl don't get it. Commumication is work. And it's hard work. Sometimes way harder than coding. For engineers, the more senior you get, the more communication you should be doing. In most companies, sitting in a corner and quietly writing code will not get you into director-level, however good you are.

WFHRenaissance 4y ago

I saw the greatest minds of my generation wasted on optimizing AdTech systems...

wobbly_bush 4y ago

Making cool and useful stuff is not easy and requires the right ecosystem. For example, take all the immigrants working at FAANG. They could have been working in their countries and building something cool/useful/or something more meaningful to people in their origin countries. But that's not possible, that's one of the main reasons they come to US. Within US, it is similar problem but at a smaller scale.

yodsanklai 4y ago

I can't speak for all FAANG but it hasn't been my experience. > pretty hard-working but over time become less so If people start to cruise, they may get pressured by hard-working peers and management. Of course, those who are very good may get away with it as FAANG reward impact and not work, but there are many strong engineers there, so it's very hard to stand out. And those who do are incentized to climb the ladder rather than cruise. > it doesn't make much of a difference how hard they work It's the opposite. Those who manage to have good evaluations are rewarded. > seeing highly-motivated people having their potential sapped by working on contrived pillars instead of using their talents to make cool and useful stuff There are tons of cool and useful projects in these big companies. Basically any field of CS you may be interested in is there. My experience is that people work hard when they get the job. After one year, they realize it's hard to sustain that pace and that they barely meet the expectation with all the hard work. Some leave, some get managed out, and those who stay many years are productive individuals.

codekansas 4y ago
Here's my mental model of FAANG life: - 1-2 years: Work hard because you feel optimistic and self-assured, working on exciting problems with smartest people in the world, lots of great resources - 2-3 years: Start to realize things aren't as great as you thought (e.g., a project you felt passionately about was junked for a random political reasons, people you thought were super smart start to just be normal coworkers, more of a premium on playing the game the right way than doing great work) but the salary and lifestyle is still attractive - 3-4 years: Many people leave to do something else, a bit more experienced but a bit more jaded. Many who stick around have figured out a niche to fill and are mainly in it for the lifestyle rather than the technical challenge Basically I wish it was more common to sustain and grow the early-days excitement and passion while developing as an engineer. I think with smaller companies there's often more self-determination for junior employees, so that when they "grow up" and start to see more problems they usually caused the problem themself, rather than having to live with someone else's problem, which makes it easier to stay excited. YMMV of course