Ask HN: Anyone else feel trapped in FANG? How did you get out?
I’ve been working at a FANG for 2 years now and I feel like my career goals and interests are not aligned with where I’m at. Outside of my FANG I was a go-getter who loves learning new things and taking on hard problems. Inside my company I have tried over the past 2 years to propose different solutions to hard problems and I just get blown off.
I’m good at my job I already got promoted in 1 year and am moving up. I am making more money than I expected, but at work I’m not able to express myself creatively or do things outside the box. I just get assigned straightforward work from my manager that the product managers and “leadership” assign to our team with barely any input on the overall project or ability to propose new projects.
I feel like if I stay here I will just get stuck in a cycle of never accomplishing my goals but I’m scared to move teams or companies or build a startup because I have a good manager, a good comp and my job isn’t that stressful.
I could become more involved at work in building paper reading groups or other kinds of side projects to creatively express myself at work but I don’t want to be the person whose life revolves around their FANG.
Anyone else feel like this? What did you do?
122 comments
[ 3.8 ms ] story [ 178 ms ] threadFind someone who is doing it
Take risk and jump in unprepared
Read books like hbr buying a small business
(Whatever that means. Or don’t. Apply any and all advice to your situation, don’t just take the advice as stated ;)
You have it made! Try not to let your job become your identity.
I now live below the poverty line, using food stamps, have a child with a partner, am growing a community of supportive loving people, and am pursuing radically different projects of my own creation, including a culture construction carnival that's donation driven.
Economic self-determination is a luxury of people who have lots of money AND/OR creativity AND/OR willingness to live radically.
Fuck the norms. Postactivism is where it's at for meaningful life changes. That's a relatively recent word that effectively acknowledges that activism will always be necessary, so it makes sense to be in a way that accomplishes activism as a side effect, rather than setting aside time to do activism.
There's no way I would trade what I'm doing now for money. And the things me and my friends are working on require life skills FAANG doesn't teach, like embracing death and communal healing.
OP: don't let the money fool you. There are so many ways to go about life not involving money. Developing an awareness of what constitutes universal human needs and how to meet them without money can help focus on figuring out ways to cut money out of your life. This can help you dial down your dependencies on money. It will also reinforce the idea that money is absolutely not a need. Finding and accessing gift economies (such as Buy Nothing) is an easy first step to learning how to meet needs without money. Learning to live without money includes developing the skills of need identification, strategy identification, asking for help in coming up with the previous things, asking for and receiving freely given things/help, abandoning shame & healing through trauma around gift giving/receiving, and offering/giving freely offered things/help.
Don't let haters sway you if you choose this path. Many people will try to shame or guilt you into not following this path with nonsense thinking like "you owe it to society to use money" or "you can't possibly cut out all money usage from your life and, even if you figure it out, you're a hypocrite if you use money in the meantime." Debt is a myth, especially debts to society. Hypocrisy is a shaming term for "in a transition from one state to another"; embrace messaged of hypocrisy as signs to keep going.
Keep calm and clown on.
So what are you doing?
Most parents do not understand how we do what we do because they're afraid to allow kids the freedom and empowerment we allow for. Friends have found it exhausting to hang out with us because their childhood traumas start ringing when they see the kid do things they never would've been allowed to do and, instead of processing their trauma, they suppress their emotions, which takes a lot of energy.
And now I'm starting a carnival circuit dedicated to culture hacking in order to help people repair/recover/revolutionize their cultures in order to better meet their needs.
I'd much rather work to make parenting a paying gig, since it's clearly exploited in modern society.
If you start gaining followers....you're starting a cult
Reading your whole post but coming to this, it reads like Frank Gallagher from Shameless.
It sounds like you’re capable of much more, but you choose to live on food stamps because “debt” is a myth, among other advice you gave to op.
100% disagree with everything you said. I definitely support food stamps and other forms of assistance for families in need and people who cannot support themselves, but you’re bragging about living off of others when you could support yourself.
Do better.
Use whatever means necessary to meet those dreams if it harms nobody. Moralizing others actions along the way and catering to magical should-based thinking are efforts in futility.
Be real. Live shamelessly.
I choose to live with as little money as possible and that places me below the poverty line. Getting that money from an investor, government, employer, friend, or stranger is no different for me than getting money from family or any other source. Why limit oneself in a capitalist dystopia like that?
Would you consider getting out of your own way and maybe stop judging how people are going about doing things....or perhaps even get a little more curious about what's going on when you do judge them?
if the "gov't" offers food to all for free, then who makes that food?
The only reason food is being offered for free in the US is because it's such a rich country that leeching off a few to give food to those in need is not a huge expense.
> Getting that money from an investor, government, employer, friend, or stranger is no different for me than getting money from family or any other source.
getting money from the gov't is different from getting it from any of the other sources you listed. The gov't money is taken from people in the country by "force". The other sources you mentioned are all voluntary and so is acceptable to take from.
> maybe stop judging how people are going about doing things
well, it's getting judged because this method of living is called being carried by others when you didn't have to be. Aka, taking advantage of the welfare state, or less charitably, leeching off the work of others. It's one thing for such welfare to be available to those who need it - it's another to expect your life to be paid for by taxpayers.
> The only reason food is being offered for free in the US is because it's such a rich country that leeching off a few to give food to those in need is not a huge expense.
I don't think any of the world's current governments are setup to ethically distribute food because none of them are founded on universal human needs. If they were, then they could be constructed from a framework of needs that makes sense and can be somewhat verified in reality. Instead, we paved over needs with moralistic rights. If you want to talk more about it, find me on facebook.
If there's no simple way to opt out of capitalism, every form of income is potentially coerced.
Pretending otherwise and then moralizing around the resulting worldview is an effort in denial.
You have no awareness of my needs as a person or the needs of my family members that allows you to determine whether or not I need assistance, government or otherwise. And I don't need to prove to you any of my universal needs. Nobody does. That's quite literally not your business, as in you've not been paid or otherwise summoned to study us.
If you want to, though, I'm open to hearing your assessments after having gone camping with us for a week.
And let's be very clear:
$700/mo to feed 2 adults and a child isn't expecting my life to be paid for by taxpayers. It's graciously receiving a little help each month with living within our values. It doesn't even cover the food bills each month. The US government's assistance programs don't allow one to simply live their life however they see fit.
You haven't even bothered to ask anything about my life. That's literally how uninformed on this opinion you are. You have no idea what I do with my time, where my daily efforts go, etc.
And you want to somehow shame me for receiving money from a coercive government?
Are you even TRYING to bring down this state with me? Because last I checked, the money for food gets alloted based on usage and demand, in part, and every penny worth of food I get is not a penny going to the military.
If you're not actively trying to take down the state, then go take a look at the morality of your complicity and complacency before coming at people for how they eat in this nightmare country, let alone meet any other needs. If you are actively trying to take down the state, find me on facebook and let's figure out some collaborative villainy. I've got a lot of stuff in the mix.
No. This country was founded on a puritanical work ethic. Working hard and taking pride in it for its own sake is very cultural to the U.S. and is a core value going back to the founding colonies. Many people point out this exact difference in work cultures between the US and Europe.
Don't co-opt the word "our" and just smash your own values on top.
Why the need to tell us you’re autistic? It doesn’t justify nor is it a defense for how brazenly you brag about abusing the welfare state.
>Use whatever means necessary to meet those dreams if it harms nobody. Moralizing others actions along the way and catering to magical should-based thinking are efforts in futility.
No one can force you to be better. Only you can control what you do. Absolutely.
There are real families and single mothers in need. A grown, able bodied person bragging about abusing the system because they don’t feel they’re “harming anybody” really is shameful and embarrassing. But as you said, you choose to live “shamelessly”.
Also, CLEARLY it's radical to accept government funds to many people on this site who believe it shouldn't be done if one doesn't fit their idea of who or what government assistance is for.
People disagreeing doesn't make something radical. "Welfare is a social good" is a very mainstream position. "Welfare is a social evil" is also mainstream. Universal welfare is nearly mainstream, I wouldn't call that particularly radical either.
Radical or not, it's what I'm doing and I know very few people who do this. It sure seems radical to me because people seeking to stop using money is something I see something noted in the mainstream as radical. If what I'm describing is mainstream living and mainstream usage of government assistance, would you point me to where to find the rest of the people doing this? I could really benefit from more community support around such endeavors.
If it wasn't that stressful, you wouldn't be posting this. Feeling unfulfilled is stressful. You are stressed and you are probably burning out (yes it's possible to burn out on boredom).
Change things. Start with easy low risk changes and work your way out from there. If you want to stay in the job you have now, you likely need to change your approach to how you try to make an impact, because what you're doing now obviously isn't working.
But there are likely teams in your company where you'd feel more fulfilled. If not, being promoted at one megacorp is basically catnip for recruiters at others.
It's stressful, but only when one feels they must climb that maslow ladder (and frankly, probably jealous of the stories from successful people who seems to have done so).
A perspective change is another way out - your job is just a job. You can merely do adequate (and by the sounds of it, the OP's capable enough to not be challenged, which means they can accomplish all tasks easily).
Leave mental energy for weekends on hobbies and interests outside of job. It could be programming/software engineering related, but doesn't have to be.
Take leave often, and consider working part time if salary allows it. Use that extra time to focus on hobbies and interests. "Rest and Vest" is the phrase i heard thrown around for such behaviour, and i absolutely consider it something one should do if one is lucky enough to be in that position.
1. I'm not learning things that feel relevant outside the company. Our build processes, templating language, version control, and even our IDE are all proprietary and internal-only. It requires a lot of work to master these things, and that mastery is not transferable anywhere else.
2. I continually scan the internal job boards, and have yet to see another position that looks significantly more appealing.
3. The amount of red tape required to make any change, while expected and understandable for enterprise software, makes it hard to feel innovative or creative.
4. It takes 2 minutes to recompile/reload after every trivial changes. This is hugely detrimental to my "flow," and this is unlikely to ever be fixed due to the size of the codebase.
Five years in, you'll have a huge pile of cash and an insane chunk on your resume that will almost certainly guarantee you an interview wherever you want. Once you hit that point, take some time off and do literally anything. Start a startup, be a contractor, get a new degree.
You have stumbled onto the sort of prosperity (easy low-stress job) that 99.95% of the world literally dreams about. To throw it away because you're not "creatively expressing yourself" would be foolish.
This advice doesn't apply if you're a relentlessly competitive founder type like Gates or Bezons, but if you were of that mentality, I doubt you'd be having the same troubles you are.
This person has the ability to make that possibly serious with enough prepared latitude in making the jump if/when the soul desires. Worst case outcome: a fun social life.
The way you describe is how it is in FAANG (I work at one, haven’t at others). Until you get to a certain level, you implement what others (PMs, higher level eng) put together. If you keep advancing in your career you may have creative freedom in FAANG. But it will never be like that of a startup - which is how I read your post.
Doing creative work for big co, someone else’s idea or a startup is overrated when you look back 10 years later. This is just my opinion but I believe it is very common and comes with age.
Good luck. Sounds like you have a few good options.
Eh Bezos worked a couple different jobs. I’m sure he had these thoughts and doubts at that age.
So true, I worked with a guy that was mostly hired because he had worked at Microsoft. It wasn't even long. He was lazy and mostly at the bottom of our team's ability. Working at the right place will open doors for you.
BTW, OP, the best ideas aren't always the ones that get implemented. The ideas that get implemented are those that the leaders feel comfortable with and come from the people they feel comfortable listening to. There's a whole world of work related politics that you should learn to get your ideas heard. If you don't learn to play the game you'll have the same problem every where you go.
This is a seen in The Godfather II that always comes to mind when people say they aren't being heard.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgHXHtHSsNo
Also if you want to go back to earlier stage companies or different places than FAANG, the FAANG experience is not some golden ticket, but can be also a potential flag to those who know how things work. Basically a flag to verify can this person still build things outside of bigco or are they just a professional coaster at this point. It can be surprising to people that even though you did work at Facebook or Google, you are not automatically a good fit for some other company.
My personal way of thinking has been always to join companies or pick jobs where I learn and that pushes me in some way, especially while I'm still young. I also did work at FAANG but the main thing I learned was how manage politics. Also within FAANG there is always teams or roles where you are actually challenged but majority of the roles are fairly easy.
Ideally at each role you learn something that improves and expands your skills. Each role prepares you for your next role or the step you want to take in your career. Taking home a paycheck and being a professional coaster doesn't help you make progress or make your life interesting (not to say that work is all your life but it is part of it).
Also, I highly disagree that FAANG jobs are "easy, low-stress" jobs, but maybe your experience is significantly different.
At this point, I can't even express how grateful I am and full of joy since my life is just so great. Yes, I suffered, but it is was so worth it.
Here is the core problem in my life: I hired a private chef which tilts the retirement math out of whack, but I have three decades to solve this problem. It's a fantastic problem to have, and if I had taken opportunities to be happy then I couldn't be here maximizing my own personal creativity.
Right now, I'm building my own platform to mess around and have fun: https://www.adama-platform.com/ and I'm exploring the nature of what I like to make and embracing myself for random detours.
Then again I’ve rarely had the discipline to stay put and make a short term sacrifice for long term gain when it comes to my daily work.
It is critically important to me to be fulfilled daily in my work and explore my ideas and passions.
To me, even if I was never financially well off, but I got to pursue my passions and creativity, that would be a life well spent.
Remember, the journey is the reward, not the end.
Disclaimer: I am a college drop out, couldn’t even be patient long enough for that.
That's pretty difficult to obtain. For typical creative passions, you need to be in the top 1% for them to sustain you.
I am into product development, particularly products that are what I would call “full stack.”
Electronics, firmware, software, and web stack all developed for the product.
If, on the other hand, you're passionate about software development and electronics, then it's a very common passion and you have to be in the top 1% to make a living out of your creations. Of course, there are subniches with various degrees of difficulty - it's easier to make money on some technically simple B2B SaaS than on consumer robots for example.
I don't understand your point. Isn't there a massive chunk of people who are passionate about "software development and electronics" that make a living off of it?
These golden shackles chained me to my faang job for a over a decade. Now I look back and my youth is gone. I have less energy , less creative drive, less inclination to shift my brain into a different groove to spin on. Makes me sick when i think about the fact that i gave my youth away to a corporation. I was just a 'young blood' willing to bang out code on demand.
I look back my past decade and I have no idea what I was doing. Its all just a blur.
I spent years on creative pursuits at college in gaming, got no money for it, then took a corp job. Ultimately I regret pouring out so much creative energy, especially since it was modding based on IP I didn't own. Anyway, my creative pursuits today are so modest and routine it would make the younger me scoff. And yet now I'm satisfied with a corporate job and hobbies like home improvement and occasional game playing and podcast recording.
I wouldn't be so sure. There's plenty of conglomerates around the world with huge piles of cash.
This is the core of the problem, right? You want to work on interesting things, but you're being prohibited from it. Also it seems a bit like you're being disrespected by them if they're not taking your ideas seriously and dismissing them immediately. If you want to stay (which I think you should), you can wait until you're 40 years old and people start listening to you just because of your age, which might feel unfulfilling. Or you can hack on these ideas on your own time, release them as an open-source project, and try to get the company to use them if the project becomes popular.
Sounds like you achieved this on the first try. You think it wouldn’t happen again? Why?
Here's why I think you might be in an average team:
>"I have tried over the past 2 years to propose different solutions to hard problems and I just get blown off."
A good team has tough problems, and they need clever solutions. Maybe your team's mandate isn't to solve a tough problem.
>"product managers and “leadership” assign to our team with barely any input on the overall project or ability to propose new projects."
This sounds like you might be in a workhorse/executing engineering team.
You say this:
>"I’m scared to move teams ... because I have a good manager ... and my job isn’t that stressful."
A better manager would be trying to increase the team's scope, and yours. If you're not feeling some stress, your manager isn't growing you. A better manager would create a challenging environment for you where you'd feel like your ass is getting kicked.
There are great FAANG teams, and great FAANG managers. Seek them out! (I'm at Amazon, probably the "A" that didn't make it in your acronym. But if you drop me a note I could introduce you to great managers at Amazon)
Alternately, why do you feel "blown off?" Is that common on your team, or just you? The feelings and also the behaviors leading up to them? Have you talked with your good manager about this? Or, if you manager was actually managing well, did the manager ask you?
Facebook is now Meta; Google is Alphabet; Netflix is a joke, and not really on par with others; and Microsoft is still there, big and relevant.
At least call them MAAMA, or even better AAMA (Meta is evil and nobody should want to work there).
https://nypost.com/2022/08/19/facebook-parent-meta-lays-off-...
quit. I mean it's that simple really. If you don't like the job you're doing and it's not meaningful, get another job. You'll have a good resume, so that shouldn't be a practical issue.
I think any other advice is really just copium. Collecting more money and joining a knitting circle or the bowling club isn't fulfilling, neither is retiring at 40 and even in a non FANG dev job you likely earn twice a middle class wage, and the only thing you don't get back is your time. It's scary but nothing's worse than not changing and regretting it later.