Ask HN: Is it a bad time to apply to FAANG companies?
I am a back-end software engineer with about 6 years of experience. I used to avoid applying to big tech companies in the past, because I didn't have enough time for a proper coding interview preparation and I preferred companies who hired based on my past projects and verbal assessment.
However, I recently quit my last job and for the first time in my life I concentrated fully on my preparation for big tech. Ironically, there are news being constantly published about large layoffs at all major tech companies.
Is it still possible to land a job in FAANG at the moment? Should I continue with my preparation?
109 comments
[ 2.5 ms ] story [ 155 ms ] threadMy advice is think about what you want to do day in and day out, rather than just focusing on "big tech". There's plenty of coding roles outside of big tech, and a lot of industry jobs haven't been affected by layoffs. If you love working on web apps or data processing (eg) you don't need to restrict yourself to big tech in order to get paid for that.
I don't know about that, basically the main reason we were able to hire new grads and juniors at previous company with lower comp is people wanting a visa (which we sponsored)
Team are often global and having calls outside 9-5 is pretty common.
Just by the numbers it is probably harder to get an offer- but if you can get an interview that would certainly be good practice. I thought I was prepared but I totally bombed my first big tech interview! I was able to learn and turn it around and got an offer the second time around.
Just like the CEO will do what is best for them, typically tied to the next quarter, with less concern for the share holder interested in a long-term investment.
The managers who would normally hire right now can’t even bring you in for an interview, so it’s probably not the best time to be trying to “crack” the interview.
Careers are decades long. How can you become better known to folks you would like to work with months or even years from now?
You might already be on your way. Everyone you know now will move on to many other companies. Some will need help. Will they remember you and ask you to come along?
You may be able to use this time to up your odds in various ways. Maybe that’s working on high publicity projects and building your reputation. Maybe it’s chatting up folks in these companies about what they do and what their problems are. Maybe it’s something else unique to you that can make you stand out.
Work on things you care about. Meet people. Be friendly and generous. You have all the time in the world.
It helps meaningfully with getting interviews at places for those of us who didn't go to top tier schools
If you did something you're proud of at a FAANG, or got exposure to a really interesting problem that changed your perspective, that'll shine in an interview, but I don't think it'll win you any points over having worked there over anywhere else.
Then there’s the issue of “if you can get into a FAANG you must be really good”. Maybe. But not sure it would outweigh other concerns.
This is an interesting one. If you're talking about software engineering, I hope you interview questions check for that.
Many people memorize by rote, "build x system, make it FAANG scale" and our industry rewards that. Many small and medium companies have delusions of grandeur that they need solutions Meta and Google do because obviously, they will be the next Google with enough time. Things get overengineered and pragmatic choices are discouraged.
Promotions become about building complex systems/services and the goalposts keep changing.
I hope your group is able to both hire for and promote the kind of culture you need for your domain.
This might sound unreasonable, but I have worked with too many of these types to believe otherwise. Bad apples have spoiled the entire lot.
I don't know enough about FAANGs to say whether they cause enough lasting damage to their employees such that they should considered a red flag on a resume--but I don't think that there's anything wrong with that kind of reasoning.
Personally, I feel that way about defense contractors. If you're content with moving at the speed of red tape, then you're going to be at a slight disadvantage when it comes to convincing me to hire you.
A good engineer should be able to recognize what process is good for what product!
It's important to check our biases because even filtering out based on industry makes your candidate pool less diverse (age, experience, gender, etc) and leads to the tech monoculture which at least I don't think is a positive thing.
Collectively, these people made the personal choice to work at these sorts of companies. No one forced them down that road. Given that these companies have been known to all act poorly for many years, their employment demonstrates a troubling deficiency in either their ethical or cognitive abilities, because they either didn’t care or didn’t see that their decision both endorses and embiggens these modern embodiments of corporate evil.
Like Guido van Rossum, John Carmack, Rob Pike and many others...
Thank you, I would rather work with people like them than like your kind of SJWs
One example near me was one that uses ML to diagnose issues with dental patients for dentists. That's a cool solution but dentistry doesn't scale well so the likelihood of this product taking off and going into a decent amount of dental practices seems low. It also feels like the first expense you would cut to save money.
Do you only find out they are sustainable during interviews?
There are basic metrics about company health that would not be too hard for you to learn, and working at a smaller company would be an education in any of itself in this if you have transparent leadership that talks about the goals and obstacles openly.
Dentistry is actually a very dynamic sector of US health care. I have no idea whether ML diagnostics is solving any real problem, whether this company is doing it effectively, or what competitors exist, but I wouldn't write it off for the reasons you're implying.
I feel like the only way to know is to actually work there but sometimes that can be a big gamble. That's what I'm trying to figure out how to avoid and what to ask.
I suppose I'm basing my assumptions, for that explicit example, on dentistry isn't an assembly line process, it's very hard to increase the amount of patients you can see in a day. This product isn't helping that, so I personally see very little value being added. I could be completely wrong but I'm scared off enough to not even apply.
I suppose I'd like to see job ads talking about how they are a good business rather than just talking about culture and tech. I understand this info can be proprietary, but yeah that's my struggle.
....but tens of billions in cash and being massively profitable sure are.
They do have lots of cash though, so you can probably negotiate strong salaries.
If money is important to you, do it. The sacrifices you'll generally make:
- you'll need to work on POCs (new products) in your off-time. Most of these companies don't schedule innovation.
- promotions are based on project delivery and impact within huge orgs, which makes it more hard.
- you'll probably run through a number of teams before you find one you like. Colleagues are generally good, management is lackluster, and execs are mostly poor. There are exceptions. I found a place where management and execs are great, but I'm not sold that this paradigm will endure.
Like, your personal time? For company products?
If you have a good idea for a feature, product, or a new system to improve your team, it's unlikely there will be time in the schedule for it. In my experience you spend your extra time playing around, show it off, and wait for a decision maker to take interest.
Like the original comment said, I've personally never seen someone be assigned time to innovate from scratch. Once a POC already exists folks jump on the bandwagon though.
I have been verbally shamed for wanting to spend time with my wife and kids rather than work. This is why I refuse to work in any Bay Area tech today.
Google and Microsoft were known as tech retirement homes to rest and vest at. We have the stupid TikTok videos to prove it too. How is it that some get so overworked and others do none?
Of course there are crunch times, but the majority of the time WLB was great. In fact, there are definitely a group of folks who seem to be permanently coasting.
There are bad companies and bad teams, but saying all of tech in the bay area operates this way is just wrong.
Downplaying it given the amount of people who come out to talk about this very thing, as you are doing, also is just wrong.
I’ve been trying to tell people for years that my experiences at multiple companies, and talking to many, many other devs I met in the area and at conferences, indicate a serious problem in tech that we need take address.
There are always people who will come out and say “well I didn’t have that experience so it doesn’t exist”.
The top-level post in this thread is just _wrong_ as a general statement (well, at least the bit "you'll need to work on POCs (new products) in your off-time. Most of these companies don't schedule innovation' for instance"), although there may be specific instances where those are true, and pretending like it isn't means that people's criticisms of these companies are criticizing them for fictional grievances instead of real ones, which makes those criticisms far weaker and easier to fend off.
Sounds like you just spent too long in the company.
Hire young people with no personal obligations and gaslight them into believing if they don’t live and breathe work they’re “not a team player”.
I have spent two decades in SV and this is simply not true. My partner has spent a similar time and barring one bad experience for 2 years, the rest of it aligns with mine. Maybe, you got stuck in some shithole?
- innovations may require significant resources (think data or compute)
- making a dent in the profitability of a multi-bn $ org should enable a very comfortable life unless you're wasting your hand (in which case you probably wouldn't make it on your own either)
Life does not work like this, the world isn't about "should" it's about "is" and "can".
So if you create something that makes the company 10% more money, at best you can expect a promotion and a small one time bonus that is a fraction of a percent of that 10% recurring revenue growth you just generated for the company you work for.
That is the best scenario. The alternate scenario is verbal recognition with 0 reward and if you work in a truly dysfunctional organization you can expect outright retaliation at some small frequency.
Core assumption: be visible and associated with profit -> good things will come your way.
How much this works will depend on your hand and the table. Personally, I don't feel drawn to dysfunctional/bloated [...] environments at all and have no FAANG experience, so I can't claim to estimate the agency in those environments, but I would assume it to be >0.
[0] https://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-pr...
The FAANG I work at currently has just under a thousand published open positions. Checking the public facing web site, the positions in teams I know about look like real positions that will be filled.
I always warn young engineers that a big pay comes with big expectations. It’s more important to set yourself up for a long career than to eek out a few good years and burn out in an environment that’s unhealthy. I’ve seen it happen, even at smaller companies.
Depends on the pay gap - I've seen people miss out on 2x because of risk aversion. Realistically if you 2x for a year you can spend the next one doing nothing but looking for the next gig. And the 1/2 gigs will likely be there once you reach a certain skill level and have 2x gig on your resume.
Nobody pays you extra because you worked at Google 10 years ago, the way you get the 2X consulting gigs is making outsized impact and presenting your work. The biggest consultants I know billing $500 an hour have some niche skillset they developed somewhere and are known as experts in their field.
Given the reports of highly effective engineers with 15+ or 20+ years of experience at Google being laid off by surprise... no, I don't think it's an employee value issue.
If you are currently unemployed, maybe there's not much opportunity cost there.
I did not see how your big tech life is as hard as you described if your colleagues are “generally good”.
Some even finished the school in 2008 when the crisis started.
make sure yoiu have an exit plan
Personally, I've given up. Maybe I'll try again in a couple years but I'd say the whole thing was just a waste of time.
If you're really good, go ahead and apply.
i got to learn a few things very quickly, and I enjoyed it. ultimately, the biggest benefit is the brand on my resume. work-wise I am not certain that i learned things there that I wouldn't have learned at any other company. Probably like most other companies, your learnings and interest diminishes over time, so you can join, experience and leave when you feel its the right time.