5 yoe TC: 215k
That FANG isn't a real company
That I only had 6 months to prove myself, being an industry (experienced) hire. I dragged out another year, but I knew at the 6 month mark that my SDM gave up on me. Which was stupid because he was a first-time SDM and I was his first charge, he was 15 years younger than me, and he only worked as an Amazon SDE 2 for 2 years. So, yes, an L5 SDM tanked my career at Amazon and I couldn’t recover from it. Like I said, I lasted another year, but it was an awful year plagued by 2 more managers harassing me (one of whom was also an L5 SDM, who sorta admitted that he was tasked to manage me out even though he only had me for 2 months). What a bloody awful job, though I otherwise liked my team.
Where are you now? Still at Amazon?
No, I had to leave. I made it to 17 months, that was it. I’m still looking. I can’t find anything good in Seattle, and I’ve tried for 5 months now. I’m moving away next week because I’m sick of being rejected here, and I only came to Seattle because of Amazon. I love the PNW, but the isolation here is killing me — and the continued sting of being mistreated at Amazon is really hard to shake. I have to put this behind me and start again elsewhere. 25 yoe as a SWE, so I’m being forced out of the field anyway, but Y(lower)MMV.
Layoffs
Yesterday
37583
Google CFO confirms 'large-scale' layoffs (Apr 17)
Tech Industry
Yesterday
49238
Goog Employees Arrested
Cars
Yesterday
2019
Why are Americans obsessed with SUV?
Tech Industry
18h
2469
Go woke, go broke: Google fires 28 employees involved in pro-Hamas protest
2024 Tax
11h
1882
Biden’s new tax proposal is wild
1. Many of the low hanging fruits have already been solved by the smart people who have joined earlier and only the extremely hard problems remain. 2. The people at FANG are usually very smart and imposter syndrome is common. 3. Many FANG build their own version of internal tools so you likely have to learn how to use a different version of a tool whenever you join a FANG. Hence it's more important to grasp the fundamentals than the tech itself. 4. As with all large companies, you'd have to learn to play the politics game if you want to rise up.