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I got multiple FAANG offers in Europe

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Re: I got multiple FAANG offers in Europe

#11

Post by saagarjha »

Jenk wrote: post #6
saagarjha wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure if you realized this while typing it, but you may wish to reconsider that acronym.

Ok I got nothing.. I assume you are referring to GFA - what evil organisation could it be mistaken for? I could only get results for Global Furniture Alliance, Ghana Football Association, (The) Good Friday Agreement, and Gospel For Asia, and many other orgs that don't seem to be controversial enough to warrant a warning. The tension is too much to bear, please enlighten me :)

The original acronym included Facebook, Apple (presumably), and Google, in that order.

Re: I got multiple FAANG offers in Europe

#12

Post by R0b0t1 »

jsiepkes wrote: post #8

While the top 20% at FANG's probably do interesting stuff I think most of the people there don't do terribly interesting stuff. If you have to game the hiring process I don't think you'll expect to be in that 20% with the interesting work? So what is it with people wanting to work so badly for large / FANG companies? The money and perks?

It's a lot of money. A lot of it, and usually great benefits and a flexible schedule. You also typically get to live in a very desirable place.

Re: I got multiple FAANG offers in Europe

#14

Post by faraaz98 »

jsiepkes wrote: post #8

While the top 20% at FANG's probably do interesting stuff I think most of the people there don't do terribly interesting stuff. If you have to game the hiring process I don't think you'll expect to be in that 20% with the interesting work? So what is it with people wanting to work so badly for large / FANG companies? The money and perks?

They seem to believe they would be doing interesting work and yeah money and perks.

And working in faang has also become something of a status symbol, maybe that's what comes with money and perks

Re: I got multiple FAANG offers in Europe

#15

Post by jlokier »

jsiepkes wrote: post #8

While the top 20% at FANG's probably do interesting stuff I think most of the people there don't do terribly interesting stuff. If you have to game the hiring process I don't think you'll expect to be in that 20% with the interesting work? So what is it with people wanting to work so badly for large / FANG companies? The money and perks?

The author is quite explicit in their post:

"A natural question here is why only publicly trading companies? First, I had already tried working for small and medium-sized businesses, wanted to try what it feels like to work for a proper corporation at a proper corporation-sized scale

"Second, I figured that a FAANG entry on my resume would act as a quality stamp, opening many doors in the future.

"Third, I hoped that a rigorous hiring procedure would help to concentrate true talent inside of the company. When you are surrounded by people willing to methodically take a VM apart piece by piece just to figure out why one operation works 5% faster than the other one, it, kind of, becomes a new norm for you, don't you think?

"At least, it is a heck of a story to tell at a conference.

"Forth, I figured that larger companies would be less afraid to relocate candidates.

"Last, my wife is about to start her Master's, and FAANG pays pretty darn well."

Re: I got multiple FAANG offers in Europe

#16

Post by Jenk »

saagarjha wrote: post #11
Jenk wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok I got nothing.. I assume you are referring to GFA - what evil organisation could it be mistaken for? I could only get results for Global Furniture Alliance, Ghana Football Association, (The) Good Friday Agreement, and Gospel For Asia, and many other orgs that don't seem to be controversial enough to warrant a warning. The tension is too much to bear, please enlighten me :)

The original acronym included Facebook, Apple (presumably), and Google, in that order.

That makes a lot more sense now :)

Re: I got multiple FAANG offers in Europe

#17

Post by nivenkos »

zerr wrote: post #9
baybal2 wrote: post #2

I've heard multiple times of the hiring practice of "throw to garbage bin every resume without past stint at GFA" from a few of my friends. Most of them worked companies like banks, and other big name non-tech companies. The number of people with past experience in big dotcoms now is big enough that any mid-sized company can expect to get a few resumes from such for each position. It's very obvious a sign of risk ave…

One way to look at it from the FANG PoV: we don't know how good engineers they are but at least we know they can handle leetcode grind and they are most likely young (i.e. had a desperation and willingness to allocate time for leetcode preps) - so we throw them 500K total comps and hope to retrain/FANG-ify them. I don't think many small/mid-sized shops can afford this.

The article is about Europe. My total comp as an L5 at Amazon was about $75k, maybe up to $90k if you count the slowly vesting RSUs.

Re: I got multiple FAANG offers in Europe

#18

Post by nivenkos »

R0b0t1 wrote: post #12
jsiepkes wrote: post #8

While the top 20% at FANG's probably do interesting stuff I think most of the people there don't do terribly interesting stuff. If you have to game the hiring process I don't think you'll expect to be in that 20% with the interesting work? So what is it with people wanting to work so badly for large / FANG companies? The money and perks?

It's a lot of money. A lot of it, and usually great benefits and a flexible schedule. You also typically get to live in a very desirable place.

But in Europe they barely pay more than a lot of medium-sized companies.

Re: I got multiple FAANG offers in Europe

#19

Post by pizza234 »

jsiepkes wrote: post #8

While the top 20% at FANG's probably do interesting stuff I think most of the people there don't do terribly interesting stuff. If you have to game the hiring process I don't think you'll expect to be in that 20% with the interesting work? So what is it with people wanting to work so badly for large / FANG companies? The money and perks?

Focusing on the technical side (ie. ignoring salary etc.), there are a couple of significant aspects I find attractive:

- working on high scale projects

- working with highly skilled peers

They're relatively unique, in the sense that they can be found in other companies for sure; but at FAANG they're pretty much guaranteed.

Working on an uninteresting task at high scale is, I think, an experience worth having, profession-wise.

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