Ask HN: Is all of FAANG like this? • Hacker News Board

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

#191

Post by OliverJones » Thu, Jul 23, 2020, 1:04 PM UTC

You have only one irreplaceable resource: your time. You care more about that resource than any employer ever will. They pay for your time and figure that's enough. (It's like that everywhere, not just at sili valley's wealthy behemoths.)

So, use your time wisely.

If you finish your week's work by Tuesday midmorning, spend the rest of your week doing something worth YOUR time. Treat this situation as an opportunity, not a curse.

You could be learning something. You could be prototyping an improvement to some aspect of your employer's software suite. You could be writing tutorials, or even books, on how to do something interesting to you. (How do you think all those O'Reilly books get written?) You might do a side hustle of some kind. It's probably not doom-scrolling.

Before you start doing that, of course, double check that you're meeting your job expectations, and that you're not stumbling into the Dunning-Kruger effect in your job.

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

#192

Post by x0x0 » Thu, Jul 23, 2020, 1:04 PM UTC

ZephyrBlu wrote: post #181

benhurmarcel wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They pay you money because you bring them value Not at all. They pay what it would cost to replace you. If someone accepted to do the same job for cheaper (or free), they'd take it, regardless of the value it generates.

Do you not agree that value creation is correlated with salary?

Not particularly strongly.

Salary is correlated with market demand and alternatives, both for the company and the employee.

For example, I know engineers who are some of the most valuable people in the company, and some engineers who are borderline useless. You can be borderline useless but good at self promotion / good at negotiation and be paid a lot more than very valuable eng. fwiw, I'm on the business side of the house, but used to be an engineer. So I think primarily in terms of business value.

Or think of CSMs. They get paid a lot less, on average, than engineers. Are they less valuable / do they create less value? It's quite hard to make that argument: No CSMs, no customers and no upsells.

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

#193

Post by dilandau » Thu, Jul 23, 2020, 1:05 PM UTC

ransom1538 wrote: post #75

I remember talking to a senior person at FB (wears a suit on friday). I asked "how is hiring?". Their response: terrible. People like this OP game systems, know how to test, understands what the boss wants, know ahead of time the questions they will be asked, etc. They have gamed the entire system. So! They tend to get through the interview with ease. The problem is... now what. What is the next thing they need to ga…

But they can always point to their resume, which lists a prestigious faang company.

I worked for a well-known tech company for a couple years, with a grueling interview process. I regularly get cold called by recruiters asking me about "my time at X".

So it's a good thing, from a career perspective. Whether it's a worthwhile thing of itself is a personal choice.

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

#194

Post by diarrhea » Thu, Jul 23, 2020, 1:05 PM UTC

loh wrote: post #128

maest wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this GPT-3 output?

I love (well, kinda...) that we're going to have to start asking this question on a much more regular basis. What will be really interesting is when it is actually a GPT-3 bot but no one has any clue, conversing with it like it were anyone else.

I really enjoy /r/SubredditSimulator, but also because it is bad. Hopefully it doesn't get too realistic.

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

#195

Post by nihil75 » Thu, Jul 23, 2020, 1:06 PM UTC

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #68

jupiter90000 wrote: post #49

This doesn't directly answer your question and you didn't ask it, but I feel it relates directly to the source of your frustration potentially: you may never find a job that is fully satisfactory in terms of what you hope to find. I used to be in a similar boat striving to work towards and find some magical job that would make me feel fulfilled and purposeful. They all ended up having things I didn't like and would q…

I agree. Don't look for personal fulfilment in work: that's not what it's for. Work for money, and use it as one of the tools you have for seeking fulfilment, not as an end in itself. Life isn't short but it's not long either, and the only thing you really have is time.

And that is how under-performing teams like OP describes are born.

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

#196

Post by unixhero » Thu, Jul 23, 2020, 1:07 PM UTC

temikus wrote: post #86

unixhero wrote: post #79

Don't leave, stay. Your current future opportunities might never come back to you again. To have 3-5 years of experience from a faang will be extremely good for your career.

Care to elaborate? Genuinely interested.

Just any recruiter if they will echo my sentiment.

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

#197

Post by ChuckNorris89 » Thu, Jul 23, 2020, 1:08 PM UTC

iorrus wrote: post #175

sneak wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For example in Sweden and most of Europe, most devs only make 2x-3x of what the toilet cleaner makes. Most devs in Europe are massively underpaid, and should work on the internet instead of some local underpaid wage-slave job. There is a shortage of skilled programmers in the world. There’s no reason to remain underpaid other than really, really wanting to work a very specific set of local timezone hours.

I work in R&D for a marquee brand corporation in Europe. Senior Dev, salary is €60k minimum salary in my country is €20k.

Which country if i may ask?

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

#198

Post by Aeolun » Thu, Jul 23, 2020, 1:08 PM UTC

This sounds more or less familiar to me. Except that everyone is working their ass off and still nothing gets done.

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

#199

Post by guscost » Thu, Jul 23, 2020, 1:08 PM UTC

nmpennypacker wrote: post #108

I don't understand how that's 'ethnically' wrong. Yes, all of FAANG companies are like this. In order to work for these companies you have to become comfortable with the idea of being paid more to do less. My advice to you would be to pick up a more rewarding side-project, or to use the in-between hours to do something that you enjoy. Ride a bike or something. Think of your main gig as a function to make money. If it…

“Move slowly and don’t break anything.”

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

#200

Post by dutchoven » Thu, Jul 23, 2020, 1:08 PM UTC

gfxgirl wrote: post #45

Switch teams? My experience were the first 2 years I was writing wholly new code and was able to write a ton. The next 3 years was all maintenance for new issues, requirements and I felt unproductive. Also, just in general it felt like my output went down 50% or more because of code review and tests. Those were all essential but up until my FAANG job no team I was on did that stuff (games). We'd just make the game an…

"I get why it's important, it just feels poopy." Very well said, that made my day :)