I’m thinking about interviewing at FB/Netflix. Got a couple offers 2 years ago but turned them down at the time. I am currently at a startup where money is good (I was early and with the liquidity I am eating getting from the equity it evens out with the amount I could make at FAANG essentially) but I feel my peers are not as talented as I would like, I’m always the one trying to learn best practices and new stuff, others are mostly looking to get by and “hide” bugs. Hell, most people don’t even bother respecting coding conventions we have, and their code gets reviewed and merged just fine. Is the idea of getting into FAANG purely to work with senior smart people I can learn from (and not $$) a fallacy? Will I be happy or will I quickly realize that people are average OR people are compartmentalized enough that one can’t effectively learn from the brightest OR the environment is so competitive that everyone is against the other and the brightest will throw me under the bus since I’m not as talented? Thanks.
you’ll definitely find that at FB. the con is that a lot of people will be strivers and it translates to not as great WLB
It sucks man. Yeah big time sucks
Could you please detail a big more? Thanks
Grass is not greener here! In fact it's just green illussion and grass has been eaten.
Could you also give some detail on the topic? Thanks
Usually smart people are out of reach. Mostly you work with pretty average people and also day to day life is not at all that exciting. Mostly people are clueless about how their work impact the overall picture.
google is a bunch of people chilling and being blocked by immense amounts of process with pockets of bright people who work hard
I miss being the smartest person in the room
But on paper that sounds really good because you are growing. Is your comment ironic or does it have some real implications such as getting a lot of pressure to perform?
Yes, you learn a lot , but it doesn’t feel good while you are at it
I was at a startup in kind of the same situation that you are describing. FANG is better. But on the flip side I am working harder and longer. So pick your poison -- just don't make it too much about money. FANG and unicorns are different lifestyles. Pick one according to taste.
At a startup I typically put in 10 hours a day, from 8:30 to 6:30, but I wouldn’t define it as too hard. In your experience do you end up working much longer than that?
I put in 8 hours a day at the startup and people were happy because the skills more than makes up for the number of hours put in by others. The bar is higher at FANG: you need to put in both skill and hours. Also, you deal with harder problems and need to work with more people.
I understand you, bro
After working in many bay area companies, I can say that my experience at dropbox has been great. I had heard very smart engineering talent, and it is true. And I like that people are very open and approachable. And independent of your team, you can collaborate with anyone else as well, if u want exposure. And they like such engineers a lot. I have heard my manager rave about an engineer who did a sprintathon with our team, for e.g. and is trying to get her to transfer to our team permanently. !
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Smart? Define smart
The exact opposite of how I described my coworkers in the post. A better description could be “people who really like the craft of software engineering, and excel at it. Their code/projects could be open sourced today and the entire programming community wouldn’t find it disgusting. Those people recognize their skills and demand high compensations for it, they are not fools working on their craft for pennies”
Not sure I agree with your definition of smart but it’s certainly a better question.