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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?

#211

Post by chownie »

WJW wrote: post #173
chownie wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That answers a point I didn't make. Everyone exchanges their time for money, if you work a job that's entirely unfulfilling you're trading happiness too. It's an exchange that no one wins.

The company might still win in that exchange, since they get the labor they paid for anyway. Whether you are happy or not is only important insomuch as it alters your productivity. Don't fall into the trap of thinking a company of FAANG size cares all that much about individual employees.

> Don't fall into the trap of thinking a company of FAANG size cares all that much about individual employees.

Don't fall into the trap of thinking everyone posting on HN comes from a similar background. I work for a non-profit who go to great lengths to make the workplace comfortable.

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

#212

Post by echelon »

caust1c wrote: post #207
jabedude wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft has SDEs as well

No 'M' in FAANG ;-) (Sorry, couldn't help myself! Many people still refer to it as a FAANG company)

FAAMG is so much more appropriate to describe the dominant tech players. People just like the sound of "FAANG".

Netflix doesn't come close to matching Microsoft or the others.

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

#213

Post by Aeolun »

benhurmarcel wrote: post #135
underdeserver wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They pay you money because you bring them value. Not because it's fulfilling or not for you in any way.

> 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.

> If someone accepted to do the same job for cheaper (or free), they'd take it, regardless of the value it generates.

They wouldn’t hire you for the job in the first place if it generated negative value.

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

#214

Post by faizshah »

nine_k wrote: post #52

During my nearly five years at Google, I have switched a number of teams and projects, as a contracting SDE. There were vast differences in the pace, communication style, and project success rate among them. There were very fast-paced projects with extremely sharp colleagues. There were small projects in contact with the prospective (non-engineering) users of the tool being built. There were slowish projects with som…

Seconding this, I had some similar questions as OP at my Amazon internship (moreso stemming from going from Data Science work to web dev). The thing is every team at Amazon is so different u can find teams moving at breakneck speed in JS monorepos and u can find teams barely moving just fixing random build configs for months without even many unit tests in their repo (some people enjoy maintaining mature software in a customer focused team).

I suggest OP browse through the internal code search tool, find a team that fits their needs/values, and then try to find a job under that manager. OP has the unique ability to see the actual day to day work a team is doing before applying, they should take advantage of that. You can find a team like OP describes at any company but how many times can you see the day to day work before applying, take advantage.

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

#215

Post by ZephyrBlu »

x0x0 wrote: post #192
ZephyrBlu wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

I agree salary is correlated with demand, but I also believe there's a reason for that demand.

CSMs have no leverage. Engineers are powerful because their work can have an org-wide impact.

If we're talking about business value I think that sales (B2B), marketing (B2C/DTC) and engineers are the largest generators of business value in companies because of the leverage they have.

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

#216

Post by jfengel »

jasonmp85 wrote: post #103
oliv__ wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry if I'm taking this the wrong way but that sounds like settling for mediocrity to me. Who said jobs can't be fulfilling?

Marx?

Marx was big on getting people to the place where they don't feel like their work is pointless. But in order to get there, you have to get rid of the social stratification of the current system, where some people do their labor and give it to somebody else to sell. That seller not only gets to keep the majority of the profit, but it also keeps the work from being very fulfilling since you're disconnected from the end product of your effort.

So Marx didn't say it was impossible. He just said that getting from here to there was going to require changes -- changes that could easily be unpleasant.

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

#217

Post by JSavageOne »

jasode wrote: post #81
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…

>So at least what I did is stop trying to put so much of an expectation on my job to fulfill me. I took responsibility to find and do things at and especially outside of my day job that did fulfill me. I'm not debating you but I just want to point out that your advice depends on the personality. It may even work for most workers but for some us, we cannot mentally "compartmentalize" the day job as the isolated 9-to-5…

With all due respect, the fact that you haven't found that "dream job" yet kind of proves the commenter's point.

I'd love to work a "dream job" myself, it just doesn't exist. The whole purpose of a job is to make a company money, and money just never really motivated me other than in the freedom it buys me to not have to sell my time. Everything I enjoy doesn't make money, and if I wanted to "monetize" any of my hobbies it'd completely kill the fun out of it.

Being an entrepreneur and your own boss sounds amazing, but it's difficult and requires a lot of hard work, time, and money. The safest path for anyone who wants to be an entrepreneur is thus to get the highest paying least demanding job with the most prestigious title (for fundraising purposes), and work on it on the side until it has enough traction and you have enough financial cushion to quit the day job and go full-time on it.

Of course one shouldn't put up with a job they absolutely loathe, but in my experience the search for a "dream job" is a journey bound for disappointment. If the job were so fun, the company wouldn't have to pay people to do it.

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

#218

Post by todd3834 »

> I don't feel what I'm doing is ethnically wrong, because the company is evidently pleased with my current productivity

I would challenge that perspective. It sounds very much like an ethical conflict to me. Does your contract say anything about the hours you are expected to be working?

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

#219

Post by Sodman »

WJW wrote: post #173
chownie wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That answers a point I didn't make. Everyone exchanges their time for money, if you work a job that's entirely unfulfilling you're trading happiness too. It's an exchange that no one wins.

The company might still win in that exchange, since they get the labor they paid for anyway. Whether you are happy or not is only important insomuch as it alters your productivity. Don't fall into the trap of thinking a company of FAANG size cares all that much about individual employees.

I'm not saying big companies deeply care about you as a person, but their interests are at least partially aligned with yours on this. Happier employees are more engaged, work harder, work longer hours. In many cases the things that make employees "happier" are a lot cheaper for employers than increasing someone's salary by x%.

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

#220

Post by JosephJoestar »

giantg2 wrote: post #159
_spoonman wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve been struggling with just purpose in general for years. I’m a husband and father - those are supposed to be my purpose. But sometimes I don’t feel very good at them. Hang in there. We’ll figure this all out.

Me too. I've stuck with my miserable job for the last 4 years so I can support them. I feel like if I quit I'd be failing them.

I'm probably not one to be giving advice but I feel like your family might gain more from having a happy fulfilled parent with less wealth possibly? How that might affect you/the way you act/the things you do day to day could be more valuable long term. Obviously thats ignoring a lot e.g. finances, practicality.
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