That's definitely not true. Working somewhere where you thoroughly enjoy every aspect of what you do (and also choose to do it in your free time because you enjoy it so much) is completely different from working somewhere where you are miserable. Professional musicians and artists are perfect examples of this. Yes, they have a job, but it's not "just a job".
@@jordixboy If a job is always just a job, then it shouldn't matter what it is. But obviously it does matter because there are jobs that you would not want to do. Would you rather do a job that you enjoy and find fulfilling (and there are some aspects you don't like about it), or would you rather do a job where you have to do something that you absolutely hate? It shouldn't matter if both are just jobs.
This has been on my mind for a while now. I’m going self-taught right and enrolling in a bootcamp next year, but I have no desire to work for any of these larger tech companies. Give me the opportunity to work for a small to mid-size company where the team is more personable and down to earth, and not so gate-keepy or elitist.
Hey, man. Watch more of this channel! My guy talks about boot camps, and he really goes in depth talking about his review of the Odin project, and free code camp! He tells you a lot of cool stuff but those two boot camps are very well known, and free! Best of luck on your journey!
What made you think that small to mid size companies guarantee any of those? I am working for a FAANG for years and work life balance is excellent, and pay is extremely good. While this video has its merits, it's still over generalizing.
@@franko8572 sometimes bootcamps are great for validation and support. I am in a free one (scholarship) rn and if I didn't already teach myself, it'd be tougher.
I had the same idea, but 1 year in and I want to work at FAANG now. The people I work with have 0 standards which creates a lot of "emergencies" that otherwise could have been avoided.
Bingo, I am a mechanical engineer and I also stay far away from big companies: Boeing, NASA, Apple, Tesla, Amazon etc. Problem with big companies is when they lay off people, it is in the masses. I have come to the conclusion that a job is simply a job, don't put all your investment/time/energy/emotions/ hopes into it.
At the end of the day, there is more to life than just working and there is more to being a developer than just working for a company and building things that don’t matter
Just finished an internship at Google after taking a break from my PhD, so here’s my two cents. I have worked previously at NASA JPL and at a big defense company and I can definitely say that being at Google was a different experience. It is absolutely a job so people need to stop putting it on a pedestal. That said, the culture at the office I was at was pretty chill, most employees seemed to have families, but I can see the dynamics being different at Mountain View. That said, I did enjoy the work I got to do (built a distributed machine learning service for internal use at google) and the perks I had were nice. The pay as an intern was good but I was based out of Irvine, CA so it was pricey to live around here. I definitely agree that people should not stress too much about going after these FAANG companies, there are plenty of other great jobs. My youngest bro will be at Mastercard starting next summer working full time and making like $150k living in Utah starting right out of uni with a bachelors degree, which seems like a great job to me! He also did not have to do any algorithm interviews, so honestly a nice interview experience too. The perks at Google that you hear about are nice but you come to see that most of the ones you hear about (massages, game rooms/cool shared spaces, etc.) are not as big a deal as you first imagine. The main perk that’s pretty convenient is the free food. The one thing I really loved working at Google is they have amazing internal development tools that help you be very productive as a software engineer. I enjoyed my experience there but I know it strongly depends on the team you are a part of, just like any business.
@@Jacob-lm1cs he works as a full stack software engineer at MasterCard related to some financial product but I don’t know all the details. He did a bachelors degree in computer science.
I jumped on the FAANG hype-train very recently this 2022 summer. I was getting ready to dedicate 40-50 hour weekly study sessions on DSA just for the prestige and high pay to prove all my haters wrong. But with all these recent FAANG layoffs - it pretty much broke that image and I realized that FAANG is just like any other company and bleeds like any other company at the end of the day. You can get a high paying tech job with FAANG and outside of it. I still code everyday, but for my own personal challenge to grow my technical knowledge.
That's incredible work ethic. I'm trying to change to a more oriented tech endeavor in software engineering amd development. Which programing language or coding skills you recommend for the next 10 years to be successful? Thanks for your comments.
Skill #1 - ABC. Always Be Learning :) Tech is always changing so you always got to upgrade and learn. But to start off, I am doing Zero To Mastery Python on Udemy. You can do that or do Full Stack Web Dev Course. You can try that out for now and then look at other things
I'm almost 40 as well. I chose the route to do a CS degree just because I felt like that was right for me personally. I started on campus, then moved to an online CS degree so I could see my wife and kids. When I look at those companies I remember all of the faculty on campus pushing those companies as "the place to be", trying to push internships at students. I also remember the students who bought into that. One I was assigned to pair program would always talk about working for one of those, always told me about the sci-fi algorithms he was going to create, and one time actually said to me "I'm pretty special". I'm happy to work elsewhere.
Since leaving the military I have only worked at the top 200 companies in America. Most of which have been in the top 50. Everything you said is 100% truth. It’s definitely not worth the time and effort. But that’s easy for me to say now since I am no longer chasing money. Since stepping away I have been so much more happier while also having a real influence within the company and making the same money.
I work in a small tech company, which doesn't give me a lot of tasks and which pays me enough to pay my bills and then some. And when I go home, I always have enough energy/time left to work on my side hustle.
Word bro. My company lets me work remote internationally (home base is Montreal, CA, but im originally from Australia, and im in Sydney right now until March to skip the winter). Still get looked after (6 figs), unlimited vacation (on track for 7 weeks this years) and I don't even put in 40 hours a week. This is the kinda job people should be aspiring for. I never imagined I could find a job with as good work life balance, and i'd honestly run through walls for my GM because he's always got my back
I can totally relate what you are saying … I’ve been working in Database engineer field for about 10 years and always want to work for FAANG company. Ive been working for fortune 250 company but can’t never get a call back from FAANG but recently got a interview invite from Amazon and after 1 month of interview process and talking to 7 people , eventually got hired.. thought about to get to work on the most exciting futuristic project when I join but 3 months in.. I’m just doing excel spreadsheet everyday .. like what the fuck you want to pay me 200k just to do excel spreadsheets that’s fine by me , but it’s not exciting at all .
Tbh I experience more politics and bureaucracy at a small/med company than I did at FANG. You also run into a higher number of exceptional people in FANG and get to work with them. There's bad people on both sides though. But most of it is true. Just find a place you like and be happy.
So I lived in NY with 85k per year as a software engineer, and now in FANNG in Seattle I make 380k, cost of living went 80% up, but the work hours are still the same. I have 2x to save. So totally disagree with what you said. I think you made your assumption while you never worked there, which is not fair. Yes, there are many kids who know nothing but they make a lot, who cares most of them will be financially free on their 30th. is not about prestige job it is about pay.
Yep, same. As long as chain of command gets longer than 3 - it gets chaotic and bizarre. That's why I looked for companies with 50-500 employees in staff. MBA is full of shit, and management is crazy these days.
I'm 25 and still fairly fresh out of school. But I'm also not super passionate about coding. I too know that if I dedicated 6 months of my life to prepping for those stupid interviews I could get through it, but the ROI really isn't worth it to me. I'd rather work for a smaller company with a better work life balance, where I can learn more. That's why I've been at the same company for almost 5 years now
Ok as someone that's worked at 3 FAANG companies, I feel the need to add balance to this video, which I find very misleading and "sour grape"-ey. And I looked through a number of the comments to see if anyone had called Dorian out but there's only a couple, and none that are fully comprehensive. The rest of it is just an echo chamber. 1. The interview process is a necessary evil. If x number of people want a finite number of spots y, where x >100y, stringent constraints are going to be placed so as to greatly lower the access to said spots. But I happen to like this style of interviewing because it equalizes across backgrounds. Regardless of your college or major, if you can do well on those tedious leetcode interviews, you can get the job. Of course, the school you go to does in some significant way correlate with how smart and driven you are but it is not a causative factor, so any smart and driven person, regardless of school or whether they have a college degree or not, can work at most FAANGs. In other industries where everyone wants to work for a few coveted companies, they typically use educational pedigree as a filter, which I find more classist and exclusionary. 2. Grantwork exists in all industries and jobs. You're right that, in certain instances, your talent might be underutilized at FAANG because like any company, they have both menial and challenging tasks but only hire the best, so you're going to have some really good people working on relatively simple things. But on the flip side, FAANG is also usually working on the most challenging engineering problems that are as result of the scale they operate at. So why you can get stuck doing work below your paygrade (which you can get out of if you communicate well with your manager and have a track record to show your prowess), you can also work on some of the most captivating problems as well.. It really depends... 3. Yes these companies are usually based in HCOL areas. However, they also have offices in LCOL areas and some are remote. And even for the ones that are not remote, paying you 3X industry rate, and living in a HCOL is still better financially than Industry rate at a LCOL. For some concrete numbers, if you're paid $220k as a new grad to live in SF and spend $2500 with a roommate, but a small tier firm is offering you $90k to live in Nebraska or wherever and spending $1200 on rent for a 2BR, at the end of the day the person being paid $220k is still bagging at least $80k a year after rent and groceries, not to mention they get to live in a dynamic and interesting city and have lots to do, while you spend less, but still take home less.... 4. FANG is prestigious. Even if you don't put it on a pedestal, everyone else does, and your prospects when exiting FANG are a lot more promising than when leaving random no name company: whether in terms of landing jobs at high growth start ups, or raising capital for your start up, FANG has a stamp of approval that other companies simply can't compare toh. 5. The amenities are there to "incentivize" not trap you there. All the FANG companies I've worked at have had phenomenal work life balance, so this point is exaggerated, if not downright misleading. You're allowed to leave when you're done with work, but you can also stay till 6 and have free dinner. it's all up to you. Nobody's holding a gun to your head. And if you ask me, I'd rather have free boba tea whenever I want it than not have any boba tea. 6. Woke culture exists in all corporations. Being woke is also not necessarily a bad thing. I think we should all have some awareness fo the socio-economic inequities that plague our society today. Perhaps not take it as far as some have, but a general awareness and conversance is something an open-minded individual should strive for. With all this said, I encourage people to do their own research, but I personally feel like working in big tech, if you can pass the interviews (which aren't impossible with enough practice) might be one of the best decisions you can make for your career.. the stat he used about the average lifespan at these companies being 3yrs is not because the companies suck, it's because the kind of people able to bring hundreds of hours of leetcode are usually ambitious go getters that are constantly looking for growth opportunities and will move to another FAANG companies for a promotion or leave to start their own business, or even retire early because they simply earn that much. BE VERY SKEPTICAL OF THIS VIDEO
It’s easy to say all this in the abstract. It’s a lot harder when you see the offer letter. Money talks, BS walks. They usually give you an offer you can’t refuse.
I agree. I've worked for corporate companies for all my design career (12 yrs). Not only do you have to jump through hoops or have projects cancelled. It can take a while for features or products to get delivered. Also large companies have large teams. That's more competition for promotions. I'm not sure how it is in the Dev industry but for design, no feature launch means no portfolio case study. No case study means nothing to show the next employer. Therefore you either get stuck or become complacent.
Here is my thing: I tried to get in at one of those companies. I talked to someone who was in Technical Account Management. Looking back, I am very happy I didn't continue the path, and that the door was closed on me. Programmers is one thing, I've heard what happens to Account Managers. I think I am ok with not working virtually 24 hours a day, even on vacation days, when something hits the fan. I enjoy where I work now, but it is still a major corporation which of whom I have to keep one hand on the panic button because you never know when your layoff run is coming.
(1) Every point you brought up about FAANG companies, you can make about ANY OTHER companies. You deal with the same bs - work hours, management, etc. The difference is you're paid 3x to 5x plus other perks. (2) Also, if you're going to point out the cost of living in the cities with FAANG presence, you can also make the same point about ANY OTHER companies in those same cities. If you live in SF and work for Wells Fargo for example, your cost of living would still be the same as some other guy who also lives in SF but works for a FAANG company. You would deal with THE SAME problem of cost of living. The difference is you would be paid 3x to 5x at FAANG. (3) Woke culture. Every other corporate setting does this. (4) You might end up working in a project that is 'not sexy' - you have this same exact problem in ANY OTHER company. Not all projects you work on will be 'sexy' (5) Prestige. It does matter for when you exit. As you pointed out HR people - and any other corporate people - do think highly of FAANG alumni - so it would be easier to exit FAANG into a senior position in other companies. Or if you want to be a startup founder. It's way easier to raise funds if you are an alumni of FAANG. It's equivalent to working at Big-3 for management consultants. Or working at Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, etc for investment bankers. You deal with the same bs - but you get paid higher and there's way more opportunities when you exit.
ikr, this is a typical sour grapes video, he didn't make any good points, perhaps except the tedious interview process, which IMO is a necessary evil since it's a great equalizer since what matters is whether you can do it or not, not what school you went to. It also filters out people since so many people are applying to these companies
If you have the discipline for self-education most of this advice may apply. I do not dismiss college education because it gives structure to a balanced knowledge base, given you pick the right one. I value Knowledge and I get that those online boot camps can give you tools, but always look for knowledge (writing skills, philosophy, other languages, logical thinking, general science) other than the newest algorithm.
Younger developers should realize that working for one of these companies is excellent. However, that should not be the end game for your software career. Eventually, the euphoria of landing a big tech job will normalize, and it will become another software job. Thrive to create the next Google, focus more on building projects, and I don't mean for the sake of landing another job but instead to build wealth for yourself and generations to come.
I worked at a large company (over 10k employees) early in my career and realized that at those kind of companies you're just a number. I had lost all desire to work at a large company after that. More money is great if you need it but money only solves money problems.
Brother, you are speaking the TRUTH ! ! ! I've worked in office corporate jobs my whole life and it is EXACTLY as you say. I've worked for 2 very big Telecommunications companies, and have turned down multiple opportunities to work at Intel.
i love this video. really. i never worked at a big company. biggest company i worked at mostly had like 20 employees. the value of my own work was so great (i can't compare though) and the value of the experience is so great. i even could get a look into how much our customers pay for the services/products they get. i'm now working self employed because i have seen every little aspect of running a small company. it really boosts the confidence. i can't ever imagine to work for a too big of a company where i work on a small cogwheel of an over complex system. there is nothing i can show off afterwards or be really proud about. web developer still doesn't fully satisfy the itch of achieving something for a life time (and probably never will), but it's what i have learned and i feel confident doing it.
Tbh it's basically the same for most industries out there: Big companies don't really care about their employees, there's a fake sense of achievement for making it into those companies and sooner or later you realize that you're being overwworked. Tbh I'd rather go with a small or mid-size company for a job. Now, if it was in gam development maybe I'd consider getting into a big company, but it would be more a matter of passion for games than "prestige" from the company or the paycheck.
Thanks for this wisdom Dorian. I’m also about to hit 40 and the last thing I want to do is go through all the bureaucratic BS and hoops to get into a FAANG. Thanks for speaking the truth and sharing your wealth of knowledge and experience.
I'm around the corner from 40 myself. There are plenty of companies out there that have great opportunities, great pay, benefits and flexibility without all of things that come with being at a FAANG.
Hahaha :) I love Dorian's videos and really respect his opinion but at least in this one there are couple of things he got wrong. My response is by no means criticizing his opinion, but I want to share more light on FAANG jobs. I worked for 3 years in non FAANG and then 7 years in FAANG and now I am planning to get out of FAANG for good. Pros: 1. FAANG companies usually have very good support for candidates on VISA. This is HUGE for all of us who want to work in US but do not hold Green card. 2. FAANG engineers get paid more than others, not because they are better, but simply because FAANG companies make a lot more money so they can afford a lot higher salaries. 3. No matter what the truth is, having FAANG on your resume does get you shortlisted for a lot more interviews. Whether you are able to crack that interview or not is totally up to you. 4. If you are product engineer working in FAANG may not be that fulfilling but if you are infra engineer you can actually come across some interesting challenges in FAANG companies because of the scale at which they operate. 5. Most of FAANG (at least the ones I worked at) are pretty open to allow WFH or hybrid workplace. 6. FAANG companies are HUGE, this gives us lot more freedom to move between teams and keep things interesting. Cons: 1. I personally hate the rat race culture. There is always a next level to get promoted to and the competition inside FAANG is pretty fierce. Sometimes I feel that there is more competition within the company compared to the competition in interviews. It takes away lot of satisfaction of the job. 2. The impact of a mistake is HUGE. It is so huge that FAANG companies have built their own CICD solutions with several layers of redundancy. Depending on which FAANG company you are in this can range from Monorepos with 1000s of commits per minute to several micro services for every task. This makes things more really really slow in FAANG. They still move faster than most enterprise companies, but they are nowhere near the speed of a lean startup. 3. Most of the FAANG companies work at a much much larger scale than other companies. They also reached there much faster than the industry, so almost all FAANG have their proprietary technologies which are great but of no use outside of the companies. For me I feel that I am coming close to being done with FAANG job. I am going to stay here for may be 1-2 yrs (unless I am impacted by some layoff) and then move back to my home country and try working for startups or may be build my own. Even though I am feeling pretty burned out right now, I was able to reach a level of financial freedom by working in FAANG which I couldn't dream in my previous jobs.
I work at Google - here are my thoughts. 1. Work life balance at most FAANG companies is actually very good. In fact it’s so good it’s become a bit of a meme that lots of people hide in them to “rest and vest”. There are some obvious exceptions that I won’t name (hehe), but usually the work hours are very flexible as long as you get your work done. 2. Most of FAANGetc does offer remote work options, particularly for more senior developers. You do have to take a pay cut, but even with the pay cut the compensation is going to be very high. Some of my senior coworkers are basically fully remote. 3. While there are exceptions and conduct standards, the vast majority of my coworkers are very helpful and friendly people. 4. The quality of engineering with regards to the capability of my coworkers, internal tooling and infrastructure, access to internal resources, etc is world class, you get to work on high impact projects and you learn from some of the best in the industry. 5. The pay is very good even after you adjust for cost of living; I think some people overplay this (particularly by looking at % of income saved rather than absolute value). Not saying that everyone should fixate on working for FAANG or that it’s a utopia etc, but just throwing some points for the other side out there for any of your audience that is still working in the corporate world or interested in it.
I work at Amazon and my experience has largely been the same. WLB is average where I work, 9-5, with breaks/lunch. It's more challenging than previous jobs, but I'm also being paid more than double equivalent jobs in my area (no, I don't live in San Fran). This is just a job for me, but a job that will allow me to be financially independent in my 30s. The resume booster and salary are reason enough to go for MANGA. That all being said, no one should be acting like they're better for going MANGA or not. For me, big tech was the smart choice. May be different for others.
Internal tooling and processes are custom so non-transferable skills. Guess you can get lucky with your team members and 24h support requirements, but the companies do set the environment up to favour competitive people, which results in bigger egos and politics.
@@hannesRSA at least with regards to Google, the vast majority of teams do not have a hyper-competitive/workaholic culture, and in fact tend to discourage it. Work can be stressful but it’s usually due to the complexity of the engineering (aka the good kind) and not external impositions. The point about internal tooling being non-transferable is true, and it is possible to fall into a bit of a bubble where you don’t have to learn about some things that are abstracted away from you. I don’t think this is an insurmountable problem though (you can learn other tech when you want/need to anyway - software engineering skill isn’t strongly based on what stack you know).
@@Andy-lo9sp agree. Guess I'm a bit bummed out I only learned about big tech companies in my 40s and didn't have the best 1st year in one... also didn't like that I'd have to double up on learning to work elsewhere. So my best 20y didn't earn me much. Now I assume I'm too old to rejoin a MANGA company. Earning decently but worrying about keeping employment till 60 since I'd be broke otherwise.
@@hannesRSA there’s no age limit for applying, I have a decent number of pretty old coworkers. People are pretty open to whatever age you are. Not to say it’s the end all be all, I’m sure you can get by fine without working for Big Tech, but age doesn’t have to hold you back.
I think in the end this might be said for 99% of companies, I mean, that they don't care about you, I agree with you on the other things as well. I've been thinking a lot about what I care about work, I'm realizing that besides the traditional things like WFH, I want to feel that I contribute with something, doesn't need to be something big, might be fixing a bug that was holding our supply chain process, or helping a junior to understand how the system works, or being a reliable person for people that is worth being reliable.
Yeah, I always get an uneasy feeling when I see these 'how I got my FAANG job' videos on YT. I can fathom the idea of it being on your resume and the high earnings that come with it, if people are fortunate enough to land a role in those companies. But beyond that I don't see it as the 'promised' land or anything, and I assume it might be good or terrible, or anywhere along the spectrum of experiences that come with having any job. I worked in a company (not tech) and got made redunant this year; and because it was a known company and people seem to feel that they are a cool company, every time I told someone where I worked, if they knew about the company they would get excited.." oooooh... aahhh", not knowing that I hated my life whiel I had that job and ultimately I was so glad I got made redundant. It's often all about appearances. I like Joshua Fluke's takes on the corporate world especially when it comes to tech. He gets hate for his opinions, but he's opening a lot of people's eyes, especially those who may feel that working for these companies might be 'the key to happiness'. Anyway, your rant got more and more EPIC towards the end of this video - wonderful to observe. 😄
When I got into code I felt/feel the same way. If it was a warehouse and there was a sign outside that they are perpetually hiring, the first thing that pops into your head would be holy shit that job must be murder and the turn over rate must be ridiculous!
I work as a software developer for my local utility company and think it’s gotta be way more rewarding writing code that has a direct positive impact on my community than writing code for one of googles hundreds of applications that I don’t even know how is being used
As a self taught dev, I defnitely agree with you. FAANG is overhyped and not worth it. For the life of me, I can't comprehend going through 8 different interviews and spending 3 months getting ready. Holy sh!t!
Love it! Keep pushing great content. At the end of the day, its corporate slavery and they're trying to make it more flashy and 'fun' to go to work when it really is just BS.
If any of those huge companies ever cared for actual good developers, they'd be hiring all over the world, because awesome smart people are not just on the west coast. Realising that, while looking at the trend of building IT campuses and tech companies cancelling working from home, makes me think working at FAANG is more about lifestyle than actual tech skills.
I truly believe on you @dorian and have been following you since you started your channel and decided to also teach myself. After teaching myself for two years and been working as full stack engineer at Booz Allen Hamilton for 7 months now , I feel like I should have a job at google because I am currently developing an application for my country and google on my resume will give a big push I swear. I am currently learning and practicing algorithms and datastructure to pass interview at google. I also believe working at google with help save tons of money even though the city os expensive.you can still save a lot money if you manage your money properly. I have almost three niches websites that generates incomes .not that much but something I could help my family overseas. Thanks Dorian for your wisdom on this video
The reason I want to work in a big tech company is to really learn from the best of the best in tech and to get that fat paycheck. Often times, in non-tech companies, there is no real incentive to really dig through and solve problems. As long as it works it's fine (most of the time). Also, seniors in non-tech companies aren't the best in terms of coding. In fact, it's very possible they're not even senior worthy, but just there due to tenure. In big tech, this is hardly the case. Leetcoding does suck, but if you want to earn big money while learning from the best in the field, you generally want to be in a big tech company (at least a tech company where their main source of revenue is from software). Can you live forever making 100k/yr? Absolutely, but why not essentially do the same work for 3-5x that? You not only retire faster, you're most likely to be hired quickly over others, and are able to have a very big safety net should something go wrong in life.
I worked facilities in a company that designs specialized parts for the Aerospace industry. They went remote for all their admin/"carpet land" employees but the moment things were good, required them to come back. I heard straight from the facilities director for that company that, "we need people to come back to get food in the cafeteria to make money back on the investment we made for that space. Otherwise having the cafeteria food and the space is a loss." They don't care about your work life balance lol.
It's kinda funny to see a video with this title after watching your ''every programmer on youtube video''' from some time ago where you said you'd make a video of why you would not work at FAANG 😆. But great content mate your channel speaks good truth and is always nice to watch, looking forward to the next video.
Technically, by making videos and posting it on RUclips, you are still working for a FAANG company. Google still owns RUclips, and your revenue depends on how well your videos do on Google owned RUclips platform.
Hater comments in 3 2 1 ... (I'm kidding please don't spam hater comments). I really appreciate that you've been so honest with this topic and you say everything that comes into your head straightforwardly with no second thoughts. And nowadays, mi amigo it's a very valuable skill that more and more people is losing because they are afraid of "what can they say about me, bla bla". Thanks for your honesty, really.
3:10 Great point on companies who spend billions on a fancy campus people "MUST" come back to. But if your office resembles the sterile boring spaces straight out of the 1990s, it doesn't make sense forcing people into such a lackluster office whose rent is cutting into their profits and silently fire those valuable engineers who won't come back from WFH when we're going to go through one of the toughest economic downturns since the one "they" made back in 2007-2009.
I have worked at Amazon. I avoid the big companies due to culture issues. But understanding algorithms and data structures was never something I tied to those companies. Much smaller and much nicer companies will still do that if they need someone that has a deep understanding of problem solving in the context of computer science. If you're not looking for a position that is closer to the forefront of software engineering then you can mostly avoid that stuff. But make sure you aren't assigning computer science education and problem solving practice as simply the purview of elitists and corporations. There is certainly tons of industry relevant content in a computer science degree.
You basically confirmed all my suspicions about working for FANG. I’m currently working as a software dev for one of the biggest corporations in Minnesota and over here, work life balance is really good. It’s been fully remote, though now some teams are tryna be hybrid (1-2 days a week in office). Of course pay isn’t on FANG level, but still pretty good for this area. The corporate campus even has some FANG type perks. So yeah I’d say just try going for a big company not in California. You’ll pretty much get a good handful of the nice tech job perks with WAY less of the bs.
I was approached by a FAANG company to work for them. I went through the interview process and eventually got the job. It was a nightmarish hell. Needless to say I left after a while.
The thing that matters in your work life is your mental health and overall satisfaction as long as your pay is about what you need to live and enjoy your life. I don't want to work for a corporation that treats me like a trained machine and does not care even about my mental health.
Companies are always ready to put their best interest first. If that includes firing you they will. Regardless of how many years you’ve given them. You too should always be ready to leave when you get a better opportunity.
I got recruiters calling me from these companies occasionally but it really picked up just a month or so before all the layoffs were announced, which I found rather amusing.
the only reason I want to learn to code, is to first make some mods/applications for the games I like, then reverse engineer some old Platform exclusive games and port them to other platforms, that's it. After that I'll see what I can contribute.
Right on point bro, the truth that no body is talking about is, the whole tech industry is fugazi, it's not real, it's not in the elemental chart, that's why platforms like upwork and toptal exist, the average tech guy keeps rotating companies, as they really don't need you forever, stability is absolutely missing here.
I think you can always try and see by yourself. I think you can have a strategic approche, work there for 2-4 years, save as much as possible and then quite and have a good net worth and then work whatever you want. It is not only faang that does not care about employee all cmpanies are like that, they are here to make profit, so ....
These big companies you're just a cog in a machine. Nothing too significant and you won't be noticed if you leave. Smaller companies you have so much more value and presence when it comes to building things that matter.
I don't know how many actual "Faang" people are going to be here making fun of you that you won't get into "Faang." Most of the people I met at Google were fairly open to the idea that most people could be capable of getting in. No one is doubting your capabilitys. "jumping through hoops" - Yes, you do, but you have to do that at really any company short of a startup (and startups themselves have a slew of issues) "little obscure projects" - It depends how you define obscure. Some people like writing code that goes to billions of people, but only impacts them marginally. Others would rather have a more intense impact on a select few. But people talk about "faang" like you'll spend 6 months changing the color of a button. I don't actually think the productivity of engineers is THAT much lower than any other company "high cost of living" - Really depends on the company here. Some places cost a lot to live in because they are desirable. So if my pay is adjusted to HCOL, then I could view it as "oh, I get to live in NYC for basically free, because my company pays MORE than the difference in cost of living." Also, your savings with a HCOL salary will get you far in a LCOL area but not vice versa, so you can actually save more in HCOL. "micromanaging in the office" - that would require your manager being in the office lol. This is very team dependent, but if a manager wants to micromanage you being in the office isn't going to suddenly make that a reality. They will find way's to do it remotely. "you deal with all the same BS" - Yeah, you are, except you are getting payed more operating at a larger scale have a rack of benefits, and a well-standardized work day. "trap you in the office" - work life balance at most of these companies ranges from good to fantastic. It's very team dependent. "average life span is really short" - the reason for this is that you can get a bigger raise job hopping than you can internally Most of these claims just feel a bit baseless and are super team dependent. Call me a mouth breather or whatever you want. I am not saying that we should glorify "faang" but we also definitely shouldn't demonize it. They are simply another set of companies with another set of pros and cons. I think they make a lot of sense for people starting in their careers because there is so much structure there that is meant to really mentor you and develop you into a good software engineer. Software engineering with bumper rails so to speak. But it's also not the end all be all.
Hey, I ain't bought into the FAANG hype, but you better believe if they 2-4x my comp then I'll damn sure be there! I think your example of joining Google only to be put on a team for a product that doesn't matter too much is accurate. But unless you're running your own company, or are lucky enough to be at a company you really love, most every programming job is going to be similar. Not to say you can't take pride in your work, but only a very small percentage of devs are truly working on cutting edge stuff. Most of many companies tech needs can be solved by a CRUD app. Might as well be paid well!
You forgot about the best reason to work for FAANG: The people. It's always what people leaving cite as the best part of the job. At other companies I've encountered a couple of really smart engineers. WAY more often I've encountered people who *think* they are the really smart engineer. Often the rest of the department also thinks that person is a really smart engineer, but that's for lack of a reference frame. When people arrive at FAANG there's often a bit of a culture shock, because suddenly they can learn from almost everyone around them. And the people around them are happy to teach them, because they find the things interesting (otherwise they would not be as competent). Companies with fewer than 10 employees can do this too. But for large companies the norm is that most people are just not people you'll ever learn anything at all from.
A job is just a job no matter how cool it seems. Success is not the same for everyone.
Same goes for titles.
In some cases, a fancy title is the tradeoff for a lower salary
That's definitely not true. Working somewhere where you thoroughly enjoy every aspect of what you do (and also choose to do it in your free time because you enjoy it so much) is completely different from working somewhere where you are miserable. Professional musicians and artists are perfect examples of this. Yes, they have a job, but it's not "just a job".
@@ZyroZoro A job is a job, and you wont love 100% of every task you'll do...
@@jordixboy If a job is always just a job, then it shouldn't matter what it is. But obviously it does matter because there are jobs that you would not want to do. Would you rather do a job that you enjoy and find fulfilling (and there are some aspects you don't like about it), or would you rather do a job where you have to do something that you absolutely hate? It shouldn't matter if both are just jobs.
@@ZyroZoro don't waste your time trying to make people understand, they're arguing for a world view that has no value.
This has been on my mind for a while now. I’m going self-taught right and enrolling in a bootcamp next year, but I have no desire to work for any of these larger tech companies. Give me the opportunity to work for a small to mid-size company where the team is more personable and down to earth, and not so gate-keepy or elitist.
Hey, man. Watch more of this channel! My guy talks about boot camps, and he really goes in depth talking about his review of the Odin project, and free code camp! He tells you a lot of cool stuff but those two boot camps are very well known, and free! Best of luck on your journey!
What made you think that small to mid size companies guarantee any of those? I am working for a FAANG for years and work life balance is excellent, and pay is extremely good. While this video has its merits, it's still over generalizing.
@@franko8572 sometimes bootcamps are great for validation and support. I am in a free one (scholarship) rn and if I didn't already teach myself, it'd be tougher.
@@HokageKyubiNaruto 💯 Nice! Stick with it, G! You’ll get there!
I had the same idea, but 1 year in and I want to work at FAANG now. The people I work with have 0 standards which creates a lot of "emergencies" that otherwise could have been avoided.
Bingo, I am a mechanical engineer and I also stay far away from big companies: Boeing, NASA, Apple, Tesla, Amazon etc. Problem with big companies is when they lay off people, it is in the masses.
I have come to the conclusion that a job is simply a job, don't put all your investment/time/energy/emotions/ hopes into it.
Before commenting this huge comment just go work hard and apply at those big companies and experience. Then make ur opinion.
I’m a materials engineer and started working at J&J. Thought it was my dream job but I liked my small company so much more.
Big companies overhire like crazy. That's why many lose their jobs just as quickly. You have around 10+ people doing one job.
At the end of the day, there is more to life than just working and there is more to being a developer than just working for a company and building things that don’t matter
Building things that you don't own
Building things that do matter. Do you like using the internet? Well about 1/3 of it runs on AWS
Things that dont matter? Are you kidding me? You've never used Amazon, or Visual studio code? Like what?
Just finished an internship at Google after taking a break from my PhD, so here’s my two cents. I have worked previously at NASA JPL and at a big defense company and I can definitely say that being at Google was a different experience. It is absolutely a job so people need to stop putting it on a pedestal. That said, the culture at the office I was at was pretty chill, most employees seemed to have families, but I can see the dynamics being different at Mountain View. That said, I did enjoy the work I got to do (built a distributed machine learning service for internal use at google) and the perks I had were nice. The pay as an intern was good but I was based out of Irvine, CA so it was pricey to live around here.
I definitely agree that people should not stress too much about going after these FAANG companies, there are plenty of other great jobs. My youngest bro will be at Mastercard starting next summer working full time and making like $150k living in Utah starting right out of uni with a bachelors degree, which seems like a great job to me! He also did not have to do any algorithm interviews, so honestly a nice interview experience too. The perks at Google that you hear about are nice but you come to see that most of the ones you hear about (massages, game rooms/cool shared spaces, etc.) are not as big a deal as you first imagine. The main perk that’s pretty convenient is the free food. The one thing I really loved working at Google is they have amazing internal development tools that help you be very productive as a software engineer.
I enjoyed my experience there but I know it strongly depends on the team you are a part of, just like any business.
What does your brother do? What did he get in a degree in?
@@Jacob-lm1cs he works as a full stack software engineer at MasterCard related to some financial product but I don’t know all the details. He did a bachelors degree in computer science.
I jumped on the FAANG hype-train very recently this 2022 summer. I was getting ready to dedicate 40-50 hour weekly study sessions on DSA just for the prestige and high pay to prove all my haters wrong. But with all these recent FAANG layoffs - it pretty much broke that image and I realized that FAANG is just like any other company and bleeds like any other company at the end of the day. You can get a high paying tech job with FAANG and outside of it.
I still code everyday, but for my own personal challenge to grow my technical knowledge.
That's incredible work ethic. I'm trying to change to a more oriented tech endeavor in software engineering amd development. Which programing language or coding skills you recommend for the next 10 years to be successful?
Thanks for your comments.
Skill #1 - ABC. Always Be Learning :)
Tech is always changing so you always got to upgrade and learn.
But to start off, I am doing Zero To Mastery Python on Udemy. You can do that or do Full Stack Web Dev Course. You can try that out for now and then look at other things
I'm almost 40 as well. I chose the route to do a CS degree just because I felt like that was right for me personally. I started on campus, then moved to an online CS degree so I could see my wife and kids. When I look at those companies I remember all of the faculty on campus pushing those companies as "the place to be", trying to push internships at students. I also remember the students who bought into that. One I was assigned to pair program would always talk about working for one of those, always told me about the sci-fi algorithms he was going to create, and one time actually said to me "I'm pretty special". I'm happy to work elsewhere.
Some of those kids appear naive and enthusiastic because they have no money at all and need money.
Since leaving the military I have only worked at the top 200 companies in America. Most of which have been in the top 50. Everything you said is 100% truth. It’s definitely not worth the time and effort. But that’s easy for me to say now since I am no longer chasing money. Since stepping away I have been so much more happier while also having a real influence within the company and making the same money.
I work in a small tech company, which doesn't give me a lot of tasks and which pays me enough to pay my bills and then some. And when I go home, I always have enough energy/time left to work on my side hustle.
Word bro. My company lets me work remote internationally (home base is Montreal, CA, but im originally from Australia, and im in Sydney right now until March to skip the winter). Still get looked after (6 figs), unlimited vacation (on track for 7 weeks this years) and I don't even put in 40 hours a week. This is the kinda job people should be aspiring for. I never imagined I could find a job with as good work life balance, and i'd honestly run through walls for my GM because he's always got my back
Hey any chance you can share your company name so I can apply? You can get a referral bonus if I get in 😎
I can totally relate what you are saying … I’ve been working in Database engineer field for about 10 years and always want to work for FAANG company. Ive been working for fortune 250 company but can’t never get a call back from FAANG but recently got a interview invite from Amazon and after 1 month of interview process and talking to 7 people , eventually got hired.. thought about to get to work on the most exciting futuristic project when I join but 3 months in.. I’m just doing excel spreadsheet everyday .. like what the fuck you want to pay me 200k just to do excel spreadsheets that’s fine by me , but it’s not exciting at all .
Tbh I experience more politics and bureaucracy at a small/med company than I did at FANG. You also run into a higher number of exceptional people in FANG and get to work with them. There's bad people on both sides though.
But most of it is true. Just find a place you like and be happy.
So I lived in NY with 85k per year as a software engineer, and now in FANNG in Seattle I make 380k, cost of living went 80% up, but the work hours are still the same. I have 2x to save.
So totally disagree with what you said. I think you made your assumption while you never worked there, which is not fair. Yes, there are many kids who know nothing but they make a lot, who cares most of them will be financially free on their 30th. is not about prestige job it is about pay.
Microsoft is still very cool with remote work. It's actually a pretty smooth place to work, at least on the Azure team :)
Of all my friends, the ones working at Microsoft tend to be the most grounded and happy. (not sponsored by Microsoft :).)
Was looking for this comment as I work there and am quite happy indeed.
Yep, same. As long as chain of command gets longer than 3 - it gets chaotic and bizarre. That's why I looked for companies with 50-500 employees in staff. MBA is full of shit, and management is crazy these days.
I'm 25 and still fairly fresh out of school. But I'm also not super passionate about coding. I too know that if I dedicated 6 months of my life to prepping for those stupid interviews I could get through it, but the ROI really isn't worth it to me. I'd rather work for a smaller company with a better work life balance, where I can learn more. That's why I've been at the same company for almost 5 years now
Ok as someone that's worked at 3 FAANG companies, I feel the need to add balance to this video, which I find very misleading and "sour grape"-ey. And I looked through a number of the comments to see if anyone had called Dorian out but there's only a couple, and none that are fully comprehensive. The rest of it is just an echo chamber.
1. The interview process is a necessary evil. If x number of people want a finite number of spots y, where x >100y, stringent constraints are going to be placed so as to greatly lower the access to said spots. But I happen to like this style of interviewing because it equalizes across backgrounds. Regardless of your college or major, if you can do well on those tedious leetcode interviews, you can get the job. Of course, the school you go to does in some significant way correlate with how smart and driven you are but it is not a causative factor, so any smart and driven person, regardless of school or whether they have a college degree or not, can work at most FAANGs. In other industries where everyone wants to work for a few coveted companies, they typically use educational pedigree as a filter, which I find more classist and exclusionary.
2. Grantwork exists in all industries and jobs. You're right that, in certain instances, your talent might be underutilized at FAANG because like any company, they have both menial and challenging tasks but only hire the best, so you're going to have some really good people working on relatively simple things. But on the flip side, FAANG is also usually working on the most challenging engineering problems that are as result of the scale they operate at. So why you can get stuck doing work below your paygrade (which you can get out of if you communicate well with your manager and have a track record to show your prowess), you can also work on some of the most captivating problems as well.. It really depends...
3. Yes these companies are usually based in HCOL areas. However, they also have offices in LCOL areas and some are remote. And even for the ones that are not remote, paying you 3X industry rate, and living in a HCOL is still better financially than Industry rate at a LCOL. For some concrete numbers, if you're paid $220k as a new grad to live in SF and spend $2500 with a roommate, but a small tier firm is offering you $90k to live in Nebraska or wherever and spending $1200 on rent for a 2BR, at the end of the day the person being paid $220k is still bagging at least $80k a year after rent and groceries, not to mention they get to live in a dynamic and interesting city and have lots to do, while you spend less, but still take home less....
4. FANG is prestigious. Even if you don't put it on a pedestal, everyone else does, and your prospects when exiting FANG are a lot more promising than when leaving random no name company: whether in terms of landing jobs at high growth start ups, or raising capital for your start up, FANG has a stamp of approval that other companies simply can't compare toh.
5. The amenities are there to "incentivize" not trap you there. All the FANG companies I've worked at have had phenomenal work life balance, so this point is exaggerated, if not downright misleading. You're allowed to leave when you're done with work, but you can also stay till 6 and have free dinner. it's all up to you. Nobody's holding a gun to your head. And if you ask me, I'd rather have free boba tea whenever I want it than not have any boba tea.
6. Woke culture exists in all corporations. Being woke is also not necessarily a bad thing. I think we should all have some awareness fo the socio-economic inequities that plague our society today. Perhaps not take it as far as some have, but a general awareness and conversance is something an open-minded individual should strive for.
With all this said, I encourage people to do their own research, but I personally feel like working in big tech, if you can pass the interviews (which aren't impossible with enough practice) might be one of the best decisions you can make for your career..
the stat he used about the average lifespan at these companies being 3yrs is not because the companies suck, it's because the kind of people able to bring hundreds of hours of leetcode are usually ambitious go getters that are constantly looking for growth opportunities and will move to another FAANG companies for a promotion or leave to start their own business, or even retire early because they simply earn that much.
BE VERY SKEPTICAL OF THIS VIDEO
It’s easy to say all this in the abstract. It’s a lot harder when you see the offer letter. Money talks, BS walks. They usually give you an offer you can’t refuse.
I agree. I've worked for corporate companies for all my design career (12 yrs). Not only do you have to jump through hoops or have projects cancelled. It can take a while for features or products to get delivered. Also large companies have large teams. That's more competition for promotions.
I'm not sure how it is in the Dev industry but for design, no feature launch means no portfolio case study. No case study means nothing to show the next employer. Therefore you either get stuck or become complacent.
Here is my thing: I tried to get in at one of those companies. I talked to someone who was in Technical Account Management. Looking back, I am very happy I didn't continue the path, and that the door was closed on me. Programmers is one thing, I've heard what happens to Account Managers. I think I am ok with not working virtually 24 hours a day, even on vacation days, when something hits the fan. I enjoy where I work now, but it is still a major corporation which of whom I have to keep one hand on the panic button because you never know when your layoff run is coming.
I respect soo much your honesty man! This truly is refreshing. Keep it up !
(1) Every point you brought up about FAANG companies, you can make about ANY OTHER companies. You deal with the same bs - work hours, management, etc. The difference is you're paid 3x to 5x plus other perks.
(2) Also, if you're going to point out the cost of living in the cities with FAANG presence, you can also make the same point about ANY OTHER companies in those same cities. If you live in SF and work for Wells Fargo for example, your cost of living would still be the same as some other guy who also lives in SF but works for a FAANG company. You would deal with THE SAME problem of cost of living. The difference is you would be paid 3x to 5x at FAANG.
(3) Woke culture. Every other corporate setting does this.
(4) You might end up working in a project that is 'not sexy' - you have this same exact problem in ANY OTHER company. Not all projects you work on will be 'sexy'
(5) Prestige. It does matter for when you exit.
As you pointed out HR people - and any other corporate people - do think highly of FAANG alumni - so it would be easier to exit FAANG into a senior position in other companies.
Or if you want to be a startup founder. It's way easier to raise funds if you are an alumni of FAANG.
It's equivalent to working at Big-3 for management consultants. Or working at Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, etc for investment bankers. You deal with the same bs - but you get paid higher and there's way more opportunities when you exit.
ikr, this is a typical sour grapes video, he didn't make any good points, perhaps except the tedious interview process, which IMO is a necessary evil since it's a great equalizer since what matters is whether you can do it or not, not what school you went to. It also filters out people since so many people are applying to these companies
If you have the discipline for self-education most of this advice may apply. I do not dismiss college education because it gives structure to a balanced knowledge base, given you pick the right one. I value Knowledge and I get that those online boot camps can give you tools, but always look for knowledge (writing skills, philosophy, other languages, logical thinking, general science) other than the newest algorithm.
Younger developers should realize that working for one of these companies is excellent. However, that should not be the end game for your software career. Eventually, the euphoria of landing a big tech job will normalize, and it will become another software job. Thrive to create the next Google, focus more on building projects, and I don't mean for the sake of landing another job but instead to build wealth for yourself and generations to come.
I worked at a large company (over 10k employees) early in my career and realized that at those kind of companies you're just a number. I had lost all desire to work at a large company after that. More money is great if you need it but money only solves money problems.
Brother, you are speaking the TRUTH ! ! ! I've worked in office corporate jobs my whole life and it is EXACTLY as you say. I've worked for 2 very big Telecommunications companies, and have turned down multiple opportunities to work at Intel.
Totally agree with you 👍 I worked for one of the Big 4 companies for quite a long time and your points are totally relatable.
i love this video. really. i never worked at a big company. biggest company i worked at mostly had like 20 employees. the value of my own work was so great (i can't compare though) and the value of the experience is so great. i even could get a look into how much our customers pay for the services/products they get. i'm now working self employed because i have seen every little aspect of running a small company. it really boosts the confidence. i can't ever imagine to work for a too big of a company where i work on a small cogwheel of an over complex system. there is nothing i can show off afterwards or be really proud about. web developer still doesn't fully satisfy the itch of achieving something for a life time (and probably never will), but it's what i have learned and i feel confident doing it.
Tbh it's basically the same for most industries out there: Big companies don't really care about their employees, there's a fake sense of achievement for making it into those companies and sooner or later you realize that you're being overwworked.
Tbh I'd rather go with a small or mid-size company for a job. Now, if it was in gam development maybe I'd consider getting into a big company, but it would be more a matter of passion for games than "prestige" from the company or the paycheck.
This is straightforward talk. This is how a man should talk straight up.
Thanks for this wisdom Dorian. I’m also about to hit 40 and the last thing I want to do is go through all the bureaucratic BS and hoops to get into a FAANG. Thanks for speaking the truth and sharing your wealth of knowledge and experience.
I'm around the corner from 40 myself. There are plenty of companies out there that have great opportunities, great pay, benefits and flexibility without all of things that come with being at a FAANG.
Hahaha :) I love Dorian's videos and really respect his opinion but at least in this one there are couple of things he got wrong. My response is by no means criticizing his opinion, but I want to share more light on FAANG jobs. I worked for 3 years in non FAANG and then 7 years in FAANG and now I am planning to get out of FAANG for good.
Pros:
1. FAANG companies usually have very good support for candidates on VISA. This is HUGE for all of us who want to work in US but do not hold Green card.
2. FAANG engineers get paid more than others, not because they are better, but simply because FAANG companies make a lot more money so they can afford a lot higher salaries.
3. No matter what the truth is, having FAANG on your resume does get you shortlisted for a lot more interviews. Whether you are able to crack that interview or not is totally up to you.
4. If you are product engineer working in FAANG may not be that fulfilling but if you are infra engineer you can actually come across some interesting challenges in FAANG companies because of the scale at which they operate.
5. Most of FAANG (at least the ones I worked at) are pretty open to allow WFH or hybrid workplace.
6. FAANG companies are HUGE, this gives us lot more freedom to move between teams and keep things interesting.
Cons:
1. I personally hate the rat race culture. There is always a next level to get promoted to and the competition inside FAANG is pretty fierce. Sometimes I feel that there is more competition within the company compared to the competition in interviews. It takes away lot of satisfaction of the job.
2. The impact of a mistake is HUGE. It is so huge that FAANG companies have built their own CICD solutions with several layers of redundancy. Depending on which FAANG company you are in this can range from Monorepos with 1000s of commits per minute to several micro services for every task. This makes things more really really slow in FAANG. They still move faster than most enterprise companies, but they are nowhere near the speed of a lean startup.
3. Most of the FAANG companies work at a much much larger scale than other companies. They also reached there much faster than the industry, so almost all FAANG have their proprietary technologies which are great but of no use outside of the companies.
For me I feel that I am coming close to being done with FAANG job. I am going to stay here for may be 1-2 yrs (unless I am impacted by some layoff) and then move back to my home country and try working for startups or may be build my own. Even though I am feeling pretty burned out right now, I was able to reach a level of financial freedom by working in FAANG which I couldn't dream in my previous jobs.
I work at Google - here are my thoughts.
1. Work life balance at most FAANG companies is actually very good. In fact it’s so good it’s become a bit of a meme that lots of people hide in them to “rest and vest”. There are some obvious exceptions that I won’t name (hehe), but usually the work hours are very flexible as long as you get your work done.
2. Most of FAANGetc does offer remote work options, particularly for more senior developers. You do have to take a pay cut, but even with the pay cut the compensation is going to be very high. Some of my senior coworkers are basically fully remote.
3. While there are exceptions and conduct standards, the vast majority of my coworkers are very helpful and friendly people.
4. The quality of engineering with regards to the capability of my coworkers, internal tooling and infrastructure, access to internal resources, etc is world class, you get to work on high impact projects and you learn from some of the best in the industry.
5. The pay is very good even after you adjust for cost of living; I think some people overplay this (particularly by looking at % of income saved rather than absolute value).
Not saying that everyone should fixate on working for FAANG or that it’s a utopia etc, but just throwing some points for the other side out there for any of your audience that is still working in the corporate world or interested in it.
I work at Amazon and my experience has largely been the same. WLB is average where I work, 9-5, with breaks/lunch. It's more challenging than previous jobs, but I'm also being paid more than double equivalent jobs in my area (no, I don't live in San Fran).
This is just a job for me, but a job that will allow me to be financially independent in my 30s. The resume booster and salary are reason enough to go for MANGA.
That all being said, no one should be acting like they're better for going MANGA or not. For me, big tech was the smart choice. May be different for others.
Internal tooling and processes are custom so non-transferable skills. Guess you can get lucky with your team members and 24h support requirements, but the companies do set the environment up to favour competitive people, which results in bigger egos and politics.
@@hannesRSA at least with regards to Google, the vast majority of teams do not have a hyper-competitive/workaholic culture, and in fact tend to discourage it. Work can be stressful but it’s usually due to the complexity of the engineering (aka the good kind) and not external impositions.
The point about internal tooling being non-transferable is true, and it is possible to fall into a bit of a bubble where you don’t have to learn about some things that are abstracted away from you. I don’t think this is an insurmountable problem though (you can learn other tech when you want/need to anyway - software engineering skill isn’t strongly based on what stack you know).
@@Andy-lo9sp agree. Guess I'm a bit bummed out I only learned about big tech companies in my 40s and didn't have the best 1st year in one... also didn't like that I'd have to double up on learning to work elsewhere. So my best 20y didn't earn me much. Now I assume I'm too old to rejoin a MANGA company. Earning decently but worrying about keeping employment till 60 since I'd be broke otherwise.
@@hannesRSA there’s no age limit for applying, I have a decent number of pretty old coworkers. People are pretty open to whatever age you are.
Not to say it’s the end all be all, I’m sure you can get by fine without working for Big Tech, but age doesn’t have to hold you back.
Very true. Especially about making ppl come back into the office just to micro manage
I think in the end this might be said for 99% of companies, I mean, that they don't care about you, I agree with you on the other things as well.
I've been thinking a lot about what I care about work, I'm realizing that besides the traditional things like WFH, I want to feel that I contribute with something, doesn't need to be something big, might be fixing a bug that was holding our supply chain process, or helping a junior to understand how the system works, or being a reliable person for people that is worth being reliable.
No one cares. 🫤
Let’s be real, Netflix ain’t on the same tier as these other companies, they just didn’t wanna use the acronym without an extra letter
Your original thought made me subscribe your channels 😂❤ Take love.
Yeah, I always get an uneasy feeling when I see these 'how I got my FAANG job' videos on YT. I can fathom the idea of it being on your resume and the high earnings that come with it, if people are fortunate enough to land a role in those companies. But beyond that I don't see it as the 'promised' land or anything, and I assume it might be good or terrible, or anywhere along the spectrum of experiences that come with having any job. I worked in a company (not tech) and got made redunant this year; and because it was a known company and people seem to feel that they are a cool company, every time I told someone where I worked, if they knew about the company they would get excited.." oooooh... aahhh", not knowing that I hated my life whiel I had that job and ultimately I was so glad I got made redundant. It's often all about appearances.
I like Joshua Fluke's takes on the corporate world especially when it comes to tech. He gets hate for his opinions, but he's opening a lot of people's eyes, especially those who may feel that working for these companies might be 'the key to happiness'. Anyway, your rant got more and more EPIC towards the end of this video - wonderful to observe. 😄
Shoutouts to bothe Dorian Dominguez and Joshua Fluke.
When I got into code I felt/feel the same way. If it was a warehouse and there was a sign outside that they are perpetually hiring, the first thing that pops into your head would be holy shit that job must be murder and the turn over rate must be ridiculous!
I appreciate Bach’s orchestral suite in the background
I work as a software developer for my local utility company and think it’s gotta be way more rewarding writing code that has a direct positive impact on my community than writing code for one of googles hundreds of applications that I don’t even know how is being used
As a self taught dev, I defnitely agree with you. FAANG is overhyped and not worth it. For the life of me, I can't comprehend going through 8 different interviews and spending 3 months getting ready. Holy sh!t!
Love it! Keep pushing great content. At the end of the day, its corporate slavery and they're trying to make it more flashy and 'fun' to go to work when it really is just BS.
A huge hug from argentina !!! Love your content
Very enlightening video.Thanks man 🙏🏾
I like your videos because you are the only one talk with the true. Saludos desde Los Angeles CA.
How can i like your videos thousand times. U r most honest man i follow in youtube
excuse me, it's MANGA now
And that stands for?
@@火災のアイスクリーム manga balls
Oh yeah, cuz Facebook changed their name to Meta lol
This confirms my belief as I study programming all day at a FAANG company.
Thank you for the honesty
If any of those huge companies ever cared for actual good developers, they'd be hiring all over the world, because awesome smart people are not just on the west coast. Realising that, while looking at the trend of building IT campuses and tech companies cancelling working from home, makes me think working at FAANG is more about lifestyle than actual tech skills.
I truly believe on you @dorian and have been following you since you started your channel and decided to also teach myself.
After teaching myself for two years and been working as full stack engineer at Booz Allen Hamilton for 7 months now , I feel like I should have a job at google because I am currently developing an application for my country and google on my resume will give a big push I swear.
I am currently learning and practicing algorithms and datastructure to pass interview at google.
I also believe working at google with help save tons of money even though the city os expensive.you can still save a lot money if you manage your money properly.
I have almost three niches websites that generates incomes .not that much but something I could help my family overseas.
Thanks Dorian for your wisdom on this video
This is the best video you ever made, leetcoders foaming at the mouth
I'm glad I'm able to watch this before deciding my career path
The reason I want to work in a big tech company is to really learn from the best of the best in tech and to get that fat paycheck. Often times, in non-tech companies, there is no real incentive to really dig through and solve problems. As long as it works it's fine (most of the time). Also, seniors in non-tech companies aren't the best in terms of coding. In fact, it's very possible they're not even senior worthy, but just there due to tenure. In big tech, this is hardly the case. Leetcoding does suck, but if you want to earn big money while learning from the best in the field, you generally want to be in a big tech company (at least a tech company where their main source of revenue is from software). Can you live forever making 100k/yr? Absolutely, but why not essentially do the same work for 3-5x that? You not only retire faster, you're most likely to be hired quickly over others, and are able to have a very big safety net should something go wrong in life.
I worked facilities in a company that designs specialized parts for the Aerospace industry. They went remote for all their admin/"carpet land" employees but the moment things were good, required them to come back. I heard straight from the facilities director for that company that, "we need people to come back to get food in the cafeteria to make money back on the investment we made for that space. Otherwise having the cafeteria food and the space is a loss."
They don't care about your work life balance lol.
it's a great appreciation, thanks for sharing
Speaking the truth 100%.
Perfectly said 👏🏾 👌 🙌🏾 finally someone says what I've been thinking all along!
@texting-time no thank you. This isn't Dorian
always love your input daddy Dorian
coming in with that heat, love it.
You are on point in this video and this is exactly why I don' want to work for FAANG either.
I never comment but I gotta shoutout whoever edited your video! Great job!
It's kinda funny to see a video with this title after watching your ''every programmer on youtube video''' from some time ago where you said you'd make a video of why you would not work at FAANG 😆. But great content mate your channel speaks good truth and is always nice to watch, looking forward to the next video.
Technically, by making videos and posting it on RUclips, you are still working for a FAANG company.
Google still owns RUclips, and your revenue depends on how well your videos do on Google owned RUclips platform.
Good video once again mate
Thumbnail fire.
Hater comments in 3 2 1 ... (I'm kidding please don't spam hater comments). I really appreciate that you've been so honest with this topic and you say everything that comes into your head straightforwardly with no second thoughts. And nowadays, mi amigo it's a very valuable skill that more and more people is losing because they are afraid of "what can they say about me, bla bla". Thanks for your honesty, really.
Thank you Dorian for stating big facts
This video is going change my future developer journey.
3:10 Great point on companies who spend billions on a fancy campus people "MUST" come back to. But if your office resembles the sterile boring spaces straight out of the 1990s, it doesn't make sense forcing people into such a lackluster office whose rent is cutting into their profits and silently fire those valuable engineers who won't come back from WFH when we're going to go through one of the toughest economic downturns since the one "they" made back in 2007-2009.
I totally agree with you man. A job is a job. Nothing more
Still better than non faang. Tenure is short because people hop between them for better salaries.
very unrelated but that thumbnail "faang" was really cool lol
I have worked at Amazon. I avoid the big companies due to culture issues. But understanding algorithms and data structures was never something I tied to those companies. Much smaller and much nicer companies will still do that if they need someone that has a deep understanding of problem solving in the context of computer science. If you're not looking for a position that is closer to the forefront of software engineering then you can mostly avoid that stuff. But make sure you aren't assigning computer science education and problem solving practice as simply the purview of elitists and corporations. There is certainly tons of industry relevant content in a computer science degree.
Awesome 😍! Criticizes
you rock, thanks for the video!
You basically confirmed all my suspicions about working for FANG. I’m currently working as a software dev for one of the biggest corporations in Minnesota and over here, work life balance is really good. It’s been fully remote, though now some teams are tryna be hybrid (1-2 days a week in office). Of course pay isn’t on FANG level, but still pretty good for this area. The corporate campus even has some FANG type perks. So yeah I’d say just try going for a big company not in California. You’ll pretty much get a good handful of the nice tech job perks with WAY less of the bs.
Curious, did you have to do a whiteboard/DS&A interview?
@@Ctrl_Alt_Elite nope, but I’ve definitely had whiteboard interviews when interviewing for other jobs.
BestBuy or Target?
Preach, Dorian giving it straight no chaser. 😏
I felt the same way about Boeing when I quit and thankfully in this industry I have plenty of other options.
Awesome video
Nice Bach in the background music
lol absolutely love that *meow at 4:00
I was approached by a FAANG company to work for them. I went through the interview process and eventually got the job. It was a nightmarish hell. Needless to say I left after a while.
It’s worked out pretty great for me though
The thing that matters in your work life is your mental health and overall satisfaction as long as your pay is about what you need to live and enjoy your life. I don't want to work for a corporation that treats me like a trained machine and does not care even about my mental health.
great video man
Companies are always ready to put their best interest first. If that includes firing you they will. Regardless of how many years you’ve given them. You too should always be ready to leave when you get a better opportunity.
I got recruiters calling me from these companies occasionally but it really picked up just a month or so before all the layoffs were announced, which I found rather amusing.
Great video!
Well you've earned a sub with this rant
the only reason I want to learn to code, is to first make some mods/applications for the games I like, then reverse engineer some old Platform exclusive games and port them to other platforms, that's it.
After that I'll see what I can contribute.
that sounds dope
good for you king👑
Right on point bro, the truth that no body is talking about is, the whole tech industry is fugazi, it's not real, it's not in the elemental chart, that's why platforms like upwork and toptal exist, the average tech guy keeps rotating companies, as they really don't need you forever, stability is absolutely missing here.
I think you can always try and see by yourself. I think you can have a strategic approche, work there for 2-4 years, save as much as possible and then quite and have a good net worth and then work whatever you want. It is not only faang that does not care about employee all cmpanies are like that, they are here to make profit, so ....
These big companies you're just a cog in a machine. Nothing too significant and you won't be noticed if you leave. Smaller companies you have so much more value and presence when it comes to building things that matter.
Showing my partner Silicon valley right now 😂 amazing to see scenes from it pop up in this video.
I work for a medium size company and I am perfectly satisfied.
I don't know how many actual "Faang" people are going to be here making fun of you that you won't get into "Faang." Most of the people I met at Google were fairly open to the idea that most people could be capable of getting in. No one is doubting your capabilitys.
"jumping through hoops" - Yes, you do, but you have to do that at really any company short of a startup (and startups themselves have a slew of issues)
"little obscure projects" - It depends how you define obscure. Some people like writing code that goes to billions of people, but only impacts them marginally. Others would rather have a more intense impact on a select few. But people talk about "faang" like you'll spend 6 months changing the color of a button. I don't actually think the productivity of engineers is THAT much lower than any other company
"high cost of living" - Really depends on the company here. Some places cost a lot to live in because they are desirable. So if my pay is adjusted to HCOL, then I could view it as "oh, I get to live in NYC for basically free, because my company pays MORE than the difference in cost of living." Also, your savings with a HCOL salary will get you far in a LCOL area but not vice versa, so you can actually save more in HCOL.
"micromanaging in the office" - that would require your manager being in the office lol. This is very team dependent, but if a manager wants to micromanage you being in the office isn't going to suddenly make that a reality. They will find way's to do it remotely.
"you deal with all the same BS" - Yeah, you are, except you are getting payed more operating at a larger scale have a rack of benefits, and a well-standardized work day.
"trap you in the office" - work life balance at most of these companies ranges from good to fantastic. It's very team dependent.
"average life span is really short" - the reason for this is that you can get a bigger raise job hopping than you can internally
Most of these claims just feel a bit baseless and are super team dependent.
Call me a mouth breather or whatever you want. I am not saying that we should glorify "faang" but we also definitely shouldn't demonize it. They are simply another set of companies with another set of pros and cons. I think they make a lot of sense for people starting in their careers because there is so much structure there that is meant to really mentor you and develop you into a good software engineer. Software engineering with bumper rails so to speak. But it's also not the end all be all.
Hey, I ain't bought into the FAANG hype, but you better believe if they 2-4x my comp then I'll damn sure be there!
I think your example of joining Google only to be put on a team for a product that doesn't matter too much is accurate. But unless you're running your own company, or are lucky enough to be at a company you really love, most every programming job is going to be similar. Not to say you can't take pride in your work, but only a very small percentage of devs are truly working on cutting edge stuff. Most of many companies tech needs can be solved by a CRUD app. Might as well be paid well!
You forgot about the best reason to work for FAANG: The people. It's always what people leaving cite as the best part of the job.
At other companies I've encountered a couple of really smart engineers. WAY more often I've encountered people who *think* they are the really smart engineer. Often the rest of the department also thinks that person is a really smart engineer, but that's for lack of a reference frame.
When people arrive at FAANG there's often a bit of a culture shock, because suddenly they can learn from almost everyone around them. And the people around them are happy to teach them, because they find the things interesting (otherwise they would not be as competent).
Companies with fewer than 10 employees can do this too. But for large companies the norm is that most people are just not people you'll ever learn anything at all from.