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Statistically, FAANG workers are not good engineers, mostly because Facebook and Google skews that by the sheer amount of people that they have. SWE at Google

Statistically, FAANG workers are not good engineers, mostly because Facebook and Google skews that by the sheer amount of people that they have. SWE at Google means you're good at interviewing, and that's it. There's a reason why Go was made, because, of of Rob Pike's own admission, most new devs at Google are dumbasses. There's all the half baked products, the dogshit APIs, all working on some internal ad software that runs in O(n^n^n) because who gives a shit, we're google, we have spares in our datacenter. The same applies to Facebook, that has hired up the wazoo and has basically led to a pass-the-interview culture. Passing the interview means you're good at remembering interview questions. I do have some praise for Netflix engineers, mostly because they remain a small-ish team with insane talent, and Apple and Amazon I can't really speak for. But just like every company, they have mediocre and average software developers. >most engineers DO want to work there In the past, maybe. Nowadays, you're in a pretty massive bubble if you see people still interested in joining fucking Meta. Although I guess $400k TC would make me question my morals too.

ablatt89 4y ago
Good engineers relative to what? You're conflating averages within a company, to averages in general to software engineers in the market. And you're basing this on the failures of a product without using some baseline. I agree that FAANG engineers aren't necessarily the geniuses they hype themselves out to be, but making broad assertions needs some baseline aside from personal experience as my personal experience with FAANG engineers has been mostly positive. That's not to say non-FAANG engineers aren't competent either, as I have worked with non-FAANG engineers as well and they were perfectly fine. The intent of the OP was simply to dismiss anyone working at FAANG and insinuate they were all subpar and average. He thinks you can just say "from my experience" and that just absolves him from any criticism of his statements. It's completely disingenous.
- adam_arthur 4y ago
  I said the minimum threshold required to get hired is "~average talent and willingness to grind". This is a fact. This statement says nothing about the average skill of a FAANG engineer. The bizarre extrapolation of statement A to fabricated statement B is quite astounding. Truly.
  - ablatt89 4y ago
    [flagged]
    - dijit 4y ago
      Honestly this defensiveness is quite unpleasant. Google's interview process requires two things: 1) That you're compliant 2) That you study. Smart people can get by this filter, as long as they're compliant with less studying. Average people can get by this with more studying. Even if you're smart, you will be studying. "Rockstars" can't get by this filter, which is probably the intent of the interview more than finding amazing engineers. I think it's possible that you've attached a certain weight to illustriousness of FAANG, but it's an open conversation outside of FAANG that it's not hard for an engineer of 8-10y to get a job there, the question usually becomes: "Why would you want to". As soon as you get to a certain level in tech, your primary financial needs are met completely and you start to see the shiny veneer of FAANG wearing off. A lot of what makes them seem competent from the outside is the sheer volume of staff, 100k people can make a LOT of shiny documents and good ideas (the borg paper has definitely made me think of working there). The veneer falls of Facebook first "Ew, they're scooping up all that data, gross!" Then Amazon: "They treat people like slaves and everyone I know Ex-Amazon is a burnout" Then Google: "Everything that isn't ad-tech is a toy, sure, they're rich but you live in a massive bubble.. also "Googliness" makes it sound like a cult" For all of these you have the implicit knowledge that you're going to be a tiny cog and overall the bureaucracy will be insane. Anyone who has pulled back the curtain on these companies knows that while the comp is good, the engineers aren't extraordinary just because they work there or work on "x scale problems". In fact, most Google engineers taken out of Google are fucking useless, because they've developed a body of knowledge built entirely on systems that do not exist on the outside, many of which were developed many years ago to make hard problems simpler.
      - ablatt89 4y ago
        Why is the defensiveness "unpleasant" when you're the one calling engineers incompetent because they work for FAANG? I quote you: > In fact, most Google engineers taken out of Google are fucking useless, because they've developed a body of knowledge built entirely on systems that do not exist on the outside, many of which were developed many years ago to make hard problems simpler. > Who is making this unpleasant? You critique a body of engineers, using biased personal anecdotes and no hard metrics, and think I am the one being negative and unpleasant? Insane.
- pjmlp 4y ago
  My experience looking at the quality of Android tooling raises some questions about those skills.
  - hulitu 4y ago
    My experience is the same. Could be " good engineers" and "bad management" but this would not explain why the " good engineers" would work for "bad management".
  - fidgewidge 4y ago
    Isn't the Android tooling mostly Gradle and IntelliJ though, which Google don't make.
    - ohgodplsno 4y ago
      If only. At least I'd only have to master Gradle's batshit insane logic. But no, between the Android Gradle Plugin which is clearly the work of a tortured soul, various tools like aapt, the Android API changes (lol MediaStore, lol version & extension checks), some tools in Android Studio which have been terrible for a while, there's a lot of bad stuff coming from Google. But then again none of this is as painful as using Xcode so I can't really complain.
birdyrooster 4y ago
Netflix and Alphabet engineers on par with each other, because it’s a revolving doors situation in Silicon Valley. There are under currents that move employees into different companies that have nothing to do with talent or meritocracy it’s just people hiring people they know from their past jobs.
lr1970 4y ago
> SWE at Google means you're good at interviewing, and that's it. Not quite true. As a hiring manager I lost several really good candidates to competing offers from Google. And these were strong engineers not only interviewing-wise.

ablatt89 4y ago

Good engineers relative to what? You're conflating averages within a company, to averages in general to software engineers in the market. And you're basing this on the failures of a product without using some baseline. I agree that FAANG engineers aren't necessarily the geniuses they hype themselves out to be, but making broad assertions needs some baseline aside from personal experience as my personal experience with FAANG engineers has been mostly positive. That's not to say non-FAANG engineers aren't competent either, as I have worked with non-FAANG engineers as well and they were perfectly fine. The intent of the OP was simply to dismiss anyone working at FAANG and insinuate they were all subpar and average. He thinks you can just say "from my experience" and that just absolves him from any criticism of his statements. It's completely disingenous.

adam_arthur 4y ago
I said the minimum threshold required to get hired is "~average talent and willingness to grind". This is a fact. This statement says nothing about the average skill of a FAANG engineer. The bizarre extrapolation of statement A to fabricated statement B is quite astounding. Truly.
- ablatt89 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - dijit 4y ago
    Honestly this defensiveness is quite unpleasant. Google's interview process requires two things: 1) That you're compliant 2) That you study. Smart people can get by this filter, as long as they're compliant with less studying. Average people can get by this with more studying. Even if you're smart, you will be studying. "Rockstars" can't get by this filter, which is probably the intent of the interview more than finding amazing engineers. I think it's possible that you've attached a certain weight to illustriousness of FAANG, but it's an open conversation outside of FAANG that it's not hard for an engineer of 8-10y to get a job there, the question usually becomes: "Why would you want to". As soon as you get to a certain level in tech, your primary financial needs are met completely and you start to see the shiny veneer of FAANG wearing off. A lot of what makes them seem competent from the outside is the sheer volume of staff, 100k people can make a LOT of shiny documents and good ideas (the borg paper has definitely made me think of working there). The veneer falls of Facebook first "Ew, they're scooping up all that data, gross!" Then Amazon: "They treat people like slaves and everyone I know Ex-Amazon is a burnout" Then Google: "Everything that isn't ad-tech is a toy, sure, they're rich but you live in a massive bubble.. also "Googliness" makes it sound like a cult" For all of these you have the implicit knowledge that you're going to be a tiny cog and overall the bureaucracy will be insane. Anyone who has pulled back the curtain on these companies knows that while the comp is good, the engineers aren't extraordinary just because they work there or work on "x scale problems". In fact, most Google engineers taken out of Google are fucking useless, because they've developed a body of knowledge built entirely on systems that do not exist on the outside, many of which were developed many years ago to make hard problems simpler.
    - ablatt89 4y ago
      Why is the defensiveness "unpleasant" when you're the one calling engineers incompetent because they work for FAANG? I quote you: > In fact, most Google engineers taken out of Google are fucking useless, because they've developed a body of knowledge built entirely on systems that do not exist on the outside, many of which were developed many years ago to make hard problems simpler. > Who is making this unpleasant? You critique a body of engineers, using biased personal anecdotes and no hard metrics, and think I am the one being negative and unpleasant? Insane.
pjmlp 4y ago
My experience looking at the quality of Android tooling raises some questions about those skills.
- hulitu 4y ago
  My experience is the same. Could be " good engineers" and "bad management" but this would not explain why the " good engineers" would work for "bad management".
- fidgewidge 4y ago
  Isn't the Android tooling mostly Gradle and IntelliJ though, which Google don't make.
  - ohgodplsno 4y ago
    If only. At least I'd only have to master Gradle's batshit insane logic. But no, between the Android Gradle Plugin which is clearly the work of a tortured soul, various tools like aapt, the Android API changes (lol MediaStore, lol version & extension checks), some tools in Android Studio which have been terrible for a while, there's a lot of bad stuff coming from Google. But then again none of this is as painful as using Xcode so I can't really complain.

birdyrooster 4y ago

Netflix and Alphabet engineers on par with each other, because it’s a revolving doors situation in Silicon Valley. There are under currents that move employees into different companies that have nothing to do with talent or meritocracy it’s just people hiring people they know from their past jobs.

lr1970 4y ago

> SWE at Google means you're good at interviewing, and that's it. Not quite true. As a hiring manager I lost several really good candidates to competing offers from Google. And these were strong engineers not only interviewing-wise.