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Ask HN: Is all of FAANG like this?

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Re: Ask HN: Is all of FAANG like this?

#11

Post by kanobo »

"I am not happy" - Yes you should quit. Keep in mind this year has been incredibly unusual in terms of productivity.

All the issues you describe are opportunities to have huge impact on a global scale if you decide to solve any of them. But if you truly are disgusted by the state your company then that's not your path. I think you would likely thrive if you set your own path and work in an environment you built. You might need to quit once your creation becomes too successful though to avoid this problem again.

Re: Ask HN: Is all of FAANG like this?

#12

Post by bishnu »

FAANG companies will have smaller teams working on various new/experimental products. Without a large userbase you'll be able to iterate faster. You can try to get transfered to one of those teams; I found it quite rewarding.

Re: Ask HN: Is all of FAANG like this?

#13

Post by schoolornot »

Non-stop VC funding and explosive growth usually lead to this. Eventually your managers aspirations get the best of them and they hire middle managers and those people hire program managers and the feedback loop continues. This excludes the "friends" I mean cough cough "colleagues" that get hired into newly created positions of power. Then you have reorgs which is a whole separate issue.

I don't think there is anyway way to stop this cycle, I've seen it play out too many times. The only way to sort of delay it is to ensure the C-levels are lined with at least one technical ex-SE type that'll call out BS when they see it.

Re: Ask HN: Is all of FAANG like this?

#14

Post by rehman »

Good growing startups is the best place on every aspects. 1. Not too much load since it's growing and has resource scarcity so won't push harder on employees. 2. Not less work since it's growing and there's ample work to do for next year atleast next few months. 3. You own stuff. 4. You get paid good. Equivalent to how much you work and that keeps you going. Even you can negotiate freely on this in case you have any concerns.

Not all startups are like this, but yeah few good growing startups.

Re: Ask HN: Is all of FAANG like this?

#15

Post by CoolGuySteve »

At Apple, the amount of debate, code review delays, and interdepartmental meetings made everything take forever. I once waited 2 months for a code review there. A feature I wrote and pushed for Leopard didn’t actually ship until Lion.

Back then there was severe priority inversion, anything the desktop needed got delayed by iOS priorities but also the senior engineers with magic rubber stamp powers were working on iOS. So changes for the desktop stack never got approved without significant and needless delays.

Re: Ask HN: Is all of FAANG like this?

#16

Post by samplatt »

>Because of this, I normally work about one day trickle out my changes during the the week.

Sounds like the Change tool chain is way, WAY more efficient than my "20k+ employees corp but not FAANG" general career experience... Most places I've worked for (mostly mining/engineering) have a change process that takes 2-3 weeks to get something HURRIED through a change process.

Maybe a non-technical role would suit you more. Try asking for "team admin" responsibilities as a route towards team management.

Re: Ask HN: Is all of FAANG like this?

#17

Post by faang721 »

It can be widely different depending on the team. Some projects that are high visibility will really have crazy hours for the team. Some teams are just keeping the lights on.

If I were you I’d consider an internal transfer. Try to find out which teams are doing the really interesting work.

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