Bad wlb, high stress..Is FANG worth it?

Aug 29, 2019 327 Comments

I left Cisco to join Facebook 7 months ago. I was making $210k/year on 20h/w and life was great. I could spend time with my wife and daughter. FB wlb has been mess, doing 50h+/w, high stress and barely getting meets all (avg) which I am told is great for E5. if this is what FANG is about then Working for FANG is overrated..per hour I make less money now.

TC: $360k. E5

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TOP 327 Comments
  • Amazon / Eng
    AnyReqs?😟

    Go to company page Amazon Eng

    BIO
    Anyone Hire Product Manager :)
    AnyReqs?😟
    What's your YoE?
    Aug 29, 2019 29
  • Stay for two years. Leverage FB on your resume to command 30% more elsewhere when you find something better. Sucky two years, but at least you increase your YoY comp significantly. Then find a role with better pay and WLB. Problem solved. Don't quit now and go backwards. Career killer.
    Aug 29, 2019 26
    • Autodesk / Eng
      asrd

      Go to company page Autodesk Eng

      asrd
      23 and you buy an island in Bahamas
      Aug 31, 2019
    • Oath
      deepDEEP

      Go to company page Oath

      deepDEEP
      24 and on your 3 minute lunch break, you’ll notice your arm go numb. You’ll stroke out, become lame, and then watch your family fight for your money as you lay on the couch watching family feud reruns.
      Sep 3, 2019
  • Cisco does layoffs every few months it seems - are you sure you wouldn't be sweating more there?

    And complaining about 50 hours per week for 360 TC?!? Some people at non-fangs and other fangs work the same hours for peanuts.

    It also depends on how good you are. There are a lot of smart people at FB working 40 hours per week making exceeds.
    Aug 29, 2019 8
    • He's learning and growing while doing so. It's pretty normal to work as much during the initial learning phase. He probably won't have to work as much once he masters the skills required for his current job. Just like how he only had to work 20 hours at Cisco.
      Aug 30, 2019
    • Facebook
      HolidayCat

      Go to company page Facebook

      HolidayCat
      I work like 30-40 hours/week and have never had any problems. @OP, sounds like you basically took a promotion you weren’t prepared for, would your answer be different if you were hired at E4 still making 210k+?
      Sep 1, 2019
  • Amazon
    glowk

    Go to company page Amazon

    glowk
    For 360k TC I would work 100 hours a week
    Aug 29, 2019 25
    • Gusto
      walala

      Go to company page Gusto

      walala
      @Salesforce does SFDC pay RSU every week?
      Aug 31, 2019
    • NVIDIA
      ilrk01

      Go to company page NVIDIA

      ilrk01
      RSUs should be sold as soon as they vest. They are taxed as income. Don’t be left holding stock that vested high and then tanked. Wash sales are shit. Capital loss is like half the income rate.
      Sep 4, 2019
  • You've only been here a half.
    Focus your work better and cut down on the hours.

    Once you figure out what's impactful there is no real need to work this much. In fb you dont get much credit for doing a lot of small things.

    You need to focus on very few things that really matter and do them well, delrieotize everything else - hang out with kid.

    (I have kids and I hang out with them quite a bit)
    Aug 29, 2019 18
    • Not really - much of the code looks the way it does because it is a single monolithic product that's been supported for many years with independently running teams. Even if everyone was to do a good job with their code quality, the conflicts and weird spaghetti dependencies generated by that system will be enormous. The only solution is to sometimes stop working on building new things and cleaning up shit in the codebase (which fb hasn't done enough) - writing it well to begin with wont be enough.

      As I commented before - the 6+ crowd is the best at identifying and focusing on high impact projects.

      Counter to the outcries above, there is no inherent conflict between impact and code quality. Impact is what pays the bills and is the only reason people in this industry get paid so much.

      Coming from the startups world I find the people talking about "beautiful code" a bit ridiculous and like they live in a bubble. The slow moving culture of many of the other large companies is not a system that works, it's just the ineffective engineers getting subsidized by the people in the company that actually do the work that matters (the work people did in the past to build the cash cows).

      The industry isn't built to make engineers happy. Engineers are the ones that need to find ways to be both effective and enjoy themselves.

      Facebook can afford to pay more because when they do the math, an engineer makes them more money than engineers in other companies
      Sep 1, 2019
    • Facebook / Eng
      LoneOwl

      Go to company page Facebook Eng

      LoneOwl
      And this is what even senior engineers at FB don't get it. You can move fast but sacrificing on quality, creating sphagetti architecture when you start. But as the project progresses you actually move slow, not fast. And we could see that literally in every org. They start, they move fast, they launch things and then become super slow in adding any new thing. The relationship between speed and quality is inverse in short term but in long term, to move fast you actually need a better ground framework for other components to stand on. And that ground framework is what no one wants to build at least in my experience at FB because of 6 months PSC pressure. Your experience may be different.
      Sep 1, 2019