Ask HN: I joined a FAANG and it is awful

Is it worth though? For whom are you fixing the issues? For the coworkers who will leave while you're still refactoring? For the charismatic boss? Your own personal pride? Also, is the work worth your overtime? If they staff "idiots", do they deserve your free time on the weekend?

I applaud you for being able to care so much in what you describe is a terrible team.

There's a lot to be said about your situation, but I've found that oftentimes the only way to actually figure out if a job is for you is to try it out. I have had jobs in the past which looked really good from the outside, and I even got people recommending the employer and the team, and then when I started, it became painfully obvious that the place was nowhere near as good as expected. The opposite is actually less common in my experience - if if feels wrong and if people are telling you the company is not great, it probably isn't.

There's a reason why people like working at large and reputable companies. For anyone reading your CV in the years to come, a few years spent at such a company would look impressive. You do get the benefits you mentioned, like stability and salary, so that's a net positive in your current situation. Spending a bit of time there, maybe 1-2 years would definitely not set you back too far anyway, in terms of tech, experience, etc. so it might not be as bas as you imagine it.

Then, on the opposite side, if you really hate it now, maybe you won't start liking it down the line and it could be better if you throw in the towel sooner rather than later. I've had jobs where I was unpleasantly surprised at the start, then went through periods of liking my job and then hating it and then back to liking it, etc. All in all, when I look back, I tend to remember the better things, but I can also fully remember how awful it felt at times. If the primary reason for getting into the job was that you'd work on hard problems with top talent, and there's no way to get that in the near future, then why stay there at all? The current job market would probably allow you to find something very quickly.

It's really about how you feel about the job, I think. It won't probably hurt to start looking around for better opportunities, without rushing it. It does not sound like an emergency. Plus, this way you'd give it some chance at least. It's tough to be at a job which you don't like and it's all about figuring your priorities and sticking to them.

This comment doesn't reflect well on you.

I've recently joined a FAANG as well, and I've been disappointed with the code quality and the tooling. I expected better. Yet I feel there are tons of things to learn, and there are definitely bright people there. If anything, it reminds us that it's not easy to build software.

On top of their hoop jumping game.

..

> Any advice is appreciated.

Not shitting on your colleagues with this generation's phrenology would be a great start.

More generally, it sounds like you are starting with the idea that you're better and smarter than everyone you work with and only you can see the problems, as opposed to everyone you work with being (by and large) decent and hard working people who are making the best of a complicated situation. Learning about that situation, chesterton's fence etc, will be more productive that presuming everyone you work with is an idiot.