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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 press

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

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