Why I have ZERO desire to EVER work at FAANG!

Zero To Mastery - Complete React Developer in 2022:

Receive 10% off at Zero To Mastery by using FRIENDS10 coupon code at checkout!

Here are some direct affiliate links for the gear that I use in my home office and gear that I use to make my YouTube videos

_____YouTube Gear_____

______Home Office_____

[Drakkarius]

A job is just a job no matter how cool it seems. Success is not the same for everyone.

[ianmurphy]

This has been on my mind for a while now. I’m going self-taught right and enrolling in a bootcamp next year, but I have no desire to work for any of these larger tech companies. Give me the opportunity to work for a small to mid-size company where the team is more personable and down to earth, and not so gate-keepy or elitist.

[ogun]

Bingo, I am a mechanical engineer and I also stay far away from big companies: Boeing, NASA, Apple, Tesla, Amazon etc. Problem with big companies is when they lay off people, it is in the masses.
I have come to the conclusion that a job is simply a job, don't put all your hopes into it.

[c.howard]

Just finished an internship at Google after taking a break from my PhD, so here’s my two cents. I have worked previously at NASA JPL and at a big defense company and I can definitely say that being at Google was a different experience. It is absolutely a job so people need to stop putting it on a pedestal. That said, the culture at the office I was at was pretty chill, most employees seemed to have families, but I can see the dynamics being different at Mountain View. That said, I did enjoy the work I got to do (built a distributed machine learning service for internal use at google) and the perks I had were nice. The pay as an intern was good but I was based out of Irvine, CA so it was pricey to live around here.

I definitely agree that people should not stress too much about going after these FAANG companies, there are plenty of other great jobs. My youngest bro will be at Mastercard starting next summer working full time and making like $150k living in Utah starting right out of uni with a bachelors degree, which seems like a great job to me! He also did not have to do any algorithm interviews, so honestly a nice interview experience too. The perks at Google that you hear about are nice but you come to see that most of the ones you hear about (massages, game rooms/cool shared spaces, etc.) are not as big a deal as you first imagine. The main perk that’s pretty convenient is the free food. The one thing I really loved working at Google is they have amazing internal development tools that help you be very productive as a software engineer.

I enjoyed my experience there but I know it strongly depends on the team you are a part of, just like any business.

[CA-ptmz]

I jumped on the FAANG hype-train very recently this 2022 summer. I was getting ready to dedicate 40-50 hour weekly study sessions on DSA just for the prestige and high pay to prove all my haters wrong. But with all these recent FAANG layoffs - it pretty much broke that image and I realized that FAANG is just like any other company and bleeds like any other company at the end of the day. You can get a high paying tech job with FAANG and outside of it.

I still code everyday, but for my own personal challenge to grow my technical knowledge.

[dseanhd]

At the end of the day, there is more to life than just working and there is more to being a developer than just working for a company and building things that don’t matter

[cw]

Since leaving the military I have only worked at the top 200 companies in America. Most of which have been in the top 50. Everything you said is 100% truth. It’s definitely not worth the time and effort. But that’s easy for me to say now since I am no longer chasing money. Since stepping away I have been so much more happier while also having a real influence within the company and making the same money.

[VibronicCow]

Word bro. My company lets me work remote internationally (home base is Montreal, CA, but im originally from Australia, and im in Sydney right now until March to skip the winter). Still get looked after (6 figs), unlimited vacation (on track for 7 weeks this years) and I don't even put in 40 hours a week. This is the kinda job people should be aspiring for. I never imagined I could find a job with as good work life balance, and i'd honestly run through walls for my GM because he's always got my back

[stevbarto]

I'm almost 40 as well. I chose the route to do a CS degree just because I felt like that was right for me personally. I started on campus, then moved to an online CS degree so I could see my wife and kids. When I look at those companies I remember all of the faculty on campus pushing those companies as "the place to be", trying to push internships at students. I also remember the students who bought into that. One I was assigned to pair program would always talk about working for one of those, always told me about the sci-fi algorithms he was going to create, and one time actually said to me "I'm pretty special". I'm happy to work elsewhere.

[david]

I work in a small tech company, which doesn't give me a lot of tasks and which pays me enough to pay my bills and then some. And when I go home, I always have enough energy/time left to work on my side hustle.

[danew]

I can totally relate what you are saying … I’ve been working in Database engineer field for about 10 years and always want to work for FAANG company. Ive been working for fortune 250 company but can’t never get a call back from FAANG but recently got a interview invite from Amazon and after 1 month of interview process and talking to 7 people, eventually got hired.. thought about to get to work on the most exciting futuristic project when I join but 3 months in.. I’m just doing excel spreadsheet everyday .. like what the fuck you want to pay me 200k just to do excel spreadsheets that’s fine by me, but it’s not exciting at all .

[keitwilliamsmusic]

Microsoft is still very cool with remote work. It's actually a pretty smooth place to work, at least on the Azure team :)

[rangledangle]

Tbh I experience more politics and bureaucracy at a small/med company than I did at FANG. You also run into a higher number of exceptional people in FANG and get to work with them. There's bad people on both sides though.

But most of it is true. Just find a place you like and be happy.

[jaulpanos]

I'm 25 and still fairly fresh out of school. But I'm also not super passionate about coding. I too know that if I dedicated 6 months of my life to prepping for those stupid interviews I could get through it, but the ROI really isn't worth it to me. I'd rather work for a smaller company with a better work life balance, where I can learn more. That's why I've been at the same company for almost 5 years now

[malcolmlagares]

Brother, you are speaking the TRUTH ! ! ! I've worked in office corporate jobs my whole life and it is EXACTLY as you say. I've worked for 2 very big Telecommunications companies, and have turned down multiple opportunities to work at Intel.

[riacharda]

I agree. I've worked for corporate companies for all my design career (12 yrs). Not only do you have to jump through hoops or have projects cancelled. It can take a while for features or products to get delivered. Also large companies have large teams. That's more competition for promotions.

I'm not sure how it is in the Dev industry but for design, no feature launch means no portfolio case study. No case study means nothing to show the next employer. Therefore you either get stuck or become complacent.

[AliveDeejay]

i love this video. really. i never worked at a big company. biggest company i worked at mostly had like 20 employees. the value of my own work was so great (i can't compare though) and the value of the experience is so great. i even could get a look into how much our customers pay for the services/products they get. i'm now working self employed because i have seen every little aspect of running a small company. it really boosts the confidence. i can't ever imagine to work for a too big of a company where i work on a small cogwheel of an over complex system. there is nothing i can show off afterwards or be really proud about. web developer still doesn't fully satisfy the itch of achieving something for a life time (and probably never will), but it's what i have learned and i feel confident doing it.

[ZooBoook]

I respect soo much your honesty man! This truly is refreshing. Keep it up !

[domcity]

Totally agree with you 👍 I worked for one of the Big 4 companies for quite a long time and your points are totally relatable.

[go_better]

Yep, same. As long as chain of command gets longer than 3 - it gets chaotic and bizarre. That's why I looked for companies with 50-500 employees in staff. MBA is full of shit, and management is crazy these days.