Definitely agree that this kind of media narrative is ChatGPT-level of arbitrary free association that leads to completely nonsensical conclusions. You're also

Definitely agree that this kind of media narrative is ChatGPT-level of arbitrary free association that leads to completely nonsensical conclusions. You're also right that FB is still a strong resume signal. That said, I think FAANG reputation has been slowly diluting for a while, and significantly diluted from the over-hiring during the pandemic. The bottom line is the hiring process creates a floor in terms of raw coding ability, but says very little about their ability to drive impact in companies with a lesser warchest of technical talent. The average FAANG engineer is standing on the shoulders of giants at best, and coasting at worst. Being able to deal with a large technical bureaucracy is probably the most consistently reliable signal that a FAANG tenure gives you, but that's not what most hiring managers at companies with lesser tech brand recognition are actually looking for. They're probably imagining something like the scrappiness of folks that built Google from 2000-2005, or Facebook from 2005-2010. Of course those folks still exist, but they're a lot thinner on the ground relative to the massive headcount they have today.