I’ve only had two jobs in the field, one of which is FAANG, so maybe take with a grain of salt. But:
Culture: extremely political and ego driven. Pretty toxic when you can’t find a niche of friends. Managers are mostly politicians. I don’t really want to progress past senior dev for this reason. The company really, really doesn’t give a shit about you. You are a number. If you’re lucky, you get a good team and it feels more like a small shop.
Processes: There’s a lot more going on than at my old job. Whole internal tech stack to learn, and a lot of the things we work with are proprietary. The company tends to want to build things rather than pay for services from 3rd parties. The scale is massive, much more than I’d ever dealt with, and it can be very stressful, but I’ve learned a lot.
Challenges: Competition is high and you’re not really ever allowed to get comfortable. There is much to learn, quickly. But if you’re a reasonable, relatively smart person with a willingness to learn, you’d be accepted on my team.
Ways of working: Scrum is pretty new to me, we pretty religiously adhere to it. You need to fight for your work-life balance. Set your own boundaries because otherwise they will work you like a dog. There’s never a lack of work to be done. But it’s kinda like every other job I’ve had. Everything breaks all the time and deadlines are constantly missed, the company is held together by the blood sweat and tears of people.
Summary: Money’s great, job sucks. It’s very stressful and clearly not designed for people to stick around for 10+ years. But if you can make it work for a while, the money and experience are great to have.
I have experience in a FAANG and many non-FAANGs, and this is spot on. The important takeaway imo is that FAANGs are not meant to be career-length jobs for most folks. Get in, use the environment and resources to build your skills and the free resume points, then bounce to something much less pressuring later. Some crazy people thrive on that kind of pressure though, and you’ll have a great time if that’s your jam.
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