FAANG to Other?
In London, only finance or consulting actually seems to pay well with a clear path up (outside of an SDE at FAANG). Moving to the US will be tricky given I plan on leaving my FAANG soon and want to remain in London tbh. They are also sometimes less US-centric so you can get decent work here too. I am preparing LeetCode but the comp seems low now (I would likely be hired as L4/5 SDE if I made the swap from a DE) relative to the external options I am getting at this point with 5 years DE experience. Based on Blind posts, it seems like tech culture is broken (FB poor WLB, Amazon PIP, very limited Google roles in London and GCP seems bad etc) so I am not sure remaining in ‘tech’ makes sense anymore. I dont see myself own a startup. I want a long stable career though. Should I pivot out of FAANG into consulting or finance or similar? These places have internal Data Engineeeing or similar teams which seem interesting.
Bloomberg has a strong presence in London. However you won't make as much there as in NYC as the supply of engineers in London compared to the demand is huge.
You don’t make as much in London across industries I believe vs the US. But if the plan is to stay here, just trying to see what makes sense. I am tired of seeing a lack of interesting projects and/or a path (outside of SDE roles) in FAANG in London and being paid 50% of what my US counterparts are! It’s also easier to ‘move up’ if you actually work in the HQ which is possible (ie is London) if you move industry.
No real insight here but I would just like to point out finance and consulting both have an up or out culture (PIP) and generally poor work life balance. Compared to those two careers, tech's culture isn't too broken. Also, you can always pivot back if Data Engineering at finance firms doesn't work out; those experience should still be relevant to larger tech companies.
Fair input. Thanks!
Is it a long rant or do you actually have a question? Nobody can tell you what to do with your career, sorry...
The question is that is it wise to make the swap from FAANG to something else if remaining in London is the goal?