I Got Into FAANG, Now What?
I’ll be starting at Apple in July once I graduate, working as a data scientist in the Services group in Cupertino. This is my first job so I wanted to know from current FAANGers - what’s it like? What should I expect? Also what should I do these next 6 months to best prepare for the start of my career? Any tips or advice would be greatly appreciated! TC: 140k base /110k RSU / 15k signing
Get into FNG now.
FMNG.
Is Facebook considered better than Apple? I don’t think I could work for a morally bankrupt company like FB, especially as a data scientist it would be a huge compromise in my values.
Enjoy your time instead of focusing on preparing too much. A few lessons learned quickly after joining a company: - School work was much harder than real work but 40+ hrs a week eats up free time in a way that school never did - Most things you learn in school are pretty irrelevant once you start work, as are things like your GPA and test scores - You’ll never have summer break again so enjoy it
How do you suggest I enjoy my time?
Pot?
Just curious, are you coming from a BS or master, PhD ?
BS, but I had a lot of relevant data science experience from getting a paper published and internships
Lol, after all that you want to spend your last 6 months preparing? How about have some fun or travel?
Im personally not a big fan of travelling, I’ve done it a couple of times (Australia, China, Spain, etc. ) and it gets old quick. I can’t have fun, I live in a college town and all my friends graduated last year (I did a 5th year because I took a year off to do research in a lab)
100% travel, but a plane ticket to Panama and travel through Central America until you fly out of Mexico, you’ll meet so many different people and it will help you understand life outside the bubble
It sucks being a data scientist a.k.a. a data monkey. You should grow up to be an SDE.
Data science seems like a better fit. My view of SDE is that you are a code monkey who doesn’t interact with biz stake holders, only PMs. With the data science internships I did I ran all my own projects and interacted directly with business stakeholders. The team I’m joining at Apple has no PM for data scientist so I’m sure it’ll be the same.
You'll understand this after you start. Good luck writing SQL queries and shitty scripts. Btw, your TC will suck too comparing to an SWE. It already sucks comparing with what Microsoft offers to returning SWE interns. And Microsoft is not a FAANG company.
Collect them all
Why? I get to work on ML with petabytes of data, seems much more interesting than building CRUD apps. Also TC upside seems much higher for ML proficient data scientists.
Everyone here is a SWE and thinks they're the end all be all of Technology. It's also why I hardly see any of them move to anything beyond middle management. No vision.
Ok. Let me throw in my opinion to some comments above regarding data scientist vs SWE. I am an ML PhD and working as a data scientist in non-FAANG. Advantages: 1. DS pays pretty well. I think only FANG + unicorns can exceed my base pay and that too not more than by $10K 2. Working on your own to find patterns in data to show them to your supervisor. So in a way, you get to make your own decisions. I don’t like this because sometimes I have no direction. This will happen if you don’t understand the business model. 3. That’s it. Sorry 😄 Disadvantages: 1. I have not implemented anything production level. In my PhD too, I liked implementing things. I like the software side but I am not good at it (i.e. I am not yet good at leetcoding, that’s another post anyway 😄) 2. As people say, DS pretty much spend their time to find patterns in big data using HIVE, Spark and SQL. In simple words, find out how to increase revenue and tell that to managers. Then they tell it to the engineers where they build the necessary frontend/backend. Yeah, not interested. 3. Attractive title. Tons of post online on how to become a DS. I don’t know why though. ML engineer is definitely better in my mind. 4. Relaxed job if your team is not generating enough revenue to be relevant. Because, your analysis anyway won’t impact on revenue. However, DS in Google ads team will be good. This is a disadvantage because I am not learning much. My recommendation: keep trying for ML engineer.
Interesting perspective, I like data science because it allows me to interact with business stakeholders as well. My ideal role is 70% coding/30% meetings & presentations which data science seems to fill. Also MLE roles are super competitive and most companies won’t call you back unless you have a PhD (which I don’t). That’s why i went for data science but eventually I’d like to try my hand at MLE!
I am afraid that 70% coding would be only to mine the petabytes of data. I feel implementing something is much more exciting. However, being said that, congratulations on your job offer. Go out there and if you like it, move up on the same track (e.g. senior, staff DS) or else you will have a big advantage with the Apple badge on your resume when you apply for MLE. Also, MLE doesn’t require PhD. All it needs is good leetcoding skills and decent ML knowledge. So keep working on them while you are at Apple.
What is the official title of your role on the careers site? Just data scientist?
There’s some HR jargon appended to it but yeah it’s “data scientist” on the career sites
Thanks. Trying to assess whether it’s an ML specific role that I would need publications to apply for. I have the skill set but no industry experience. btw, I would spend the time learning new stuff. Once you hit work it’s very hard to cycle in time to learn brand new things because you’re focusing on moving the needle on work projects.
work hard, make history. oh wait you don’t work for amzn
LOL, work hard, no free food
work hard, make history, eat bananas.