How should I choose? FAANG pays good money but startups are risky and exciting at the same time. There’s a chance of getting into a real bad team at faang. But startups too can go either ways. I want to optimize for my growth and learning. Can I do it at FAANG? I’m specially scared of big companies because Oracle is my first job and it downright sucks. No learning nothing. Not sure where to go next. Advice needed. 2.5yrs, 130k
Go join a startup, learn a lot then join FAANG and totally crush your peers because you'll know how to ship.
Can’t we do the same learning at FAANG?
Sure it's possible, but at the same time it's very easy to get too comfortable. For example, a startup will push you with unrealistic deadlines. So while it is stressful, the constraint should be pushing you to learn quickly. At a larger company you'll get like week to implement a feature that might really take 3 and at a start up you would only have a day or two. That's why you take a year to do a start up, feel the suffering and then go to FAANG, because you realize you weren't being paid enough to go through all that, but because you did that, you should be shipping way faster than your peers who never left FAANG because they're use to being comfy.
https://danluu.com/startup-tradeoffs/ Read point number 3. FAANG is just as good for learning as startups.
With FAANG and other big companies, you're at the mercy of the group you join. Smaller companies guarantee learning and growth, if you perform.
Consider the fact that the stock market is gonna be tightening up over the next few months. Startups are still going to be there but people's purses are going to be flowing a lot less freely than they had been a few years ago. It ain't 2012 anymore, boys and girls.
Facebook, Netflix and sort of amazon work you hard and you’ll learn a lot and quickly. Microsoft, apple, google you won’t learn as quickly. They’re too big.
I would say mix them both up. Start with a startup to medium size company since you will have way more broader domain of responsibility and learning opportunities (usually you're in charge of the entire tech stack), and after a few years, go for the bigger companies where you can learn more standard tools,processes, teams structure and collaboration, etc...
Shouldn’t it be reverse? Learn standard stuff first and then go somewhere where you can only apply
After you worked at a comfortable big company, you most likely wouldn't want to go into a startup due to the challenges of extremely long hours, underpay and job insecurity. The younger you are the easier it is to deal with these. When you are older, and with a family you would generally prefer stability, higher pay to finance a family and reasonable work hours.
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I would personally only go to a startup as a co-founder. In most startups, you will end up working way harder for way less pay than at FANG or unicorns.
Sage advice.
How about unicorns? Like doordash etc which is not too big but not too small too. How would you compare learning in such firms with learning at FAANG?