4 ms·

>which were FAANG (which everyone believes is a golden ticket into any company). In a past job, I saw a LOT of former FAANG candidates as a hiring manager (SRE

>which were FAANG (which everyone believes is a golden ticket into any company). In a past job, I saw a LOT of former FAANG candidates as a hiring manager (SRE @ hedge fund) at a past job. In my experience, FAANG folks have a somewhat barbell distribution where it's either: A. "This person is incredibly talented, well spoken and will probably find a job anywhere" B. "This person spent 5 years at a FAANG and worked on basically two projects that would have taken <6 months at a hedge fund" There doesn't really seem to be an in between. I also distinctly remember learning that Google had 100K+ employees. To me, that is moving into "big bank" size territory and it's clearly impossible for EVERYONE who is former Google to be amazing.

dehrmann 3y ago
My experience with FAANG candidates, especially those with only FAANG experience, while at a startup is they often have isolated skills and experience with bespoke, idiosyncratic ecosystems.
- russh 3y ago
  > Isolated skills and experience with bespoke, idiosyncratic ecosystems. Sounds like a good tagline for my Resume.
  - outrun86 3y ago
    “I have a very specific set of skills”
    - sumanthvepa 3y ago
      That was hilarious!
ghaff 3y ago
At conferences and the like I've always been super-impressed by the Google folks I've spoke with and listened to. But it's also my understanding that Google doesn't let just anyone "out in the wild" so I assume I'm pretty much seeing one end of the barbell (or probably a smallish slice of it).
- master_crab 3y ago
  Yeah all the FAANGs do this. They won't sponsor their bottom half to go to conferences, much less speak at them.
- scarface_74 3y ago
  I can’t speak for Google. But Amazon has an internal speaker certification and you have to be approved before they let you go out in the wild.
  - PaulRobinson 3y ago
    Let’s be clear here: the certification steps are required to give a talk as an Amazon staff member. You can go to conferences as an attendee, you can mention where you work. You just can’t get up on stage and give a talk about what you work on without going through some steps to make sure you’re not inadvertently giving away secret sauce or putting the share price into a tailspin.
ecshafer 3y ago
> I also distinctly remember learning that Google had 100K+ employees. To me, that is moving into "big bank" size territory and it's clearly impossible for EVERYONE who is former Google to be amazing. Ive worked at 3 places, sizes: <10, ~10k, and ~20k. I cant even imagine 100k. 100k for Toyota or Walmart, sure, that makes sense. But at tens of thousands of engineers you must have a lot of people not doing anything. Even at 20k, so maybe 5k engineers you only have so many people pushing on new stuff. Most are doing maintenance on crud and batch apps and keeping up with whatever "initiatives" are being pushed while attending meetings. Most impressive to me imo are the instagram type companies that have 20 employees when they are sold/ipo or whatever.
- screwturner68 3y ago
  I worked for a company with over 200,000 employees and honestly it feels like working at a small company that is at war with 1000 other small companies and four times a year we get together to re-sign cease fire agreements. Except for the endless amount of corporate bullshit it feels like a much smaller company than you'd think.
- ghaff 3y ago
  When I was an industry analyst and had more exposure to large companies at fairly high levels, the thing that impressed me was that they were able to function at all. So many layers of management, so many moving parts, so much coordination needed. It also wan't unusual for me to be consulting with some group and some topic would come up and we'd be--you do know that so and so at your company is working on this, right? And they usually wouldn't.
- genmud 3y ago
  Walmart has like 2 million+ employees, which is insane to think about. I have worked at a few ultra huge corps, one which had about 140k people, and like 240k devices in their org. When I changed jobs there in 2007, I had just come from a hosting provider where we had engineers that managed 500-1000 servers per person, depending on their role or the amount of automation. It was like I stepped back in time to 1999 and everything was manually managed/maintained.
- 3y ago

dehrmann 3y ago

My experience with FAANG candidates, especially those with only FAANG experience, while at a startup is they often have isolated skills and experience with bespoke, idiosyncratic ecosystems.

russh 3y ago
> Isolated skills and experience with bespoke, idiosyncratic ecosystems. Sounds like a good tagline for my Resume.
- outrun86 3y ago
  “I have a very specific set of skills”
  - sumanthvepa 3y ago
    That was hilarious!

ghaff 3y ago

At conferences and the like I've always been super-impressed by the Google folks I've spoke with and listened to. But it's also my understanding that Google doesn't let just anyone "out in the wild" so I assume I'm pretty much seeing one end of the barbell (or probably a smallish slice of it).

master_crab 3y ago
Yeah all the FAANGs do this. They won't sponsor their bottom half to go to conferences, much less speak at them.
scarface_74 3y ago
I can’t speak for Google. But Amazon has an internal speaker certification and you have to be approved before they let you go out in the wild.
- PaulRobinson 3y ago
  Let’s be clear here: the certification steps are required to give a talk as an Amazon staff member. You can go to conferences as an attendee, you can mention where you work. You just can’t get up on stage and give a talk about what you work on without going through some steps to make sure you’re not inadvertently giving away secret sauce or putting the share price into a tailspin.

ecshafer 3y ago

> I also distinctly remember learning that Google had 100K+ employees. To me, that is moving into "big bank" size territory and it's clearly impossible for EVERYONE who is former Google to be amazing. Ive worked at 3 places, sizes: <10, ~10k, and ~20k. I cant even imagine 100k. 100k for Toyota or Walmart, sure, that makes sense. But at tens of thousands of engineers you must have a lot of people not doing anything. Even at 20k, so maybe 5k engineers you only have so many people pushing on new stuff. Most are doing maintenance on crud and batch apps and keeping up with whatever "initiatives" are being pushed while attending meetings. Most impressive to me imo are the instagram type companies that have 20 employees when they are sold/ipo or whatever.

screwturner68 3y ago
I worked for a company with over 200,000 employees and honestly it feels like working at a small company that is at war with 1000 other small companies and four times a year we get together to re-sign cease fire agreements. Except for the endless amount of corporate bullshit it feels like a much smaller company than you'd think.
ghaff 3y ago
When I was an industry analyst and had more exposure to large companies at fairly high levels, the thing that impressed me was that they were able to function at all. So many layers of management, so many moving parts, so much coordination needed. It also wan't unusual for me to be consulting with some group and some topic would come up and we'd be--you do know that so and so at your company is working on this, right? And they usually wouldn't.
genmud 3y ago
Walmart has like 2 million+ employees, which is insane to think about. I have worked at a few ultra huge corps, one which had about 140k people, and like 240k devices in their org. When I changed jobs there in 2007, I had just come from a hosting provider where we had engineers that managed 500-1000 servers per person, depending on their role or the amount of automation. It was like I stepped back in time to 1999 and everything was manually managed/maintained.
3y ago