Comment by antifaang | Hacker News Reader

Comment by antifaang | Hacker News Reader

(I'd rather share this anonymously, so this is a throwaway account.)

I'm a software engineer and technical manager with just shy of 20 years of experience. I've never received a job offer from a FAANG company, but I've said "no thanks" to Google recruiters a number of times over the last ~10 years, and several years ago I did an initial remote interview with Netflix before declining their offer of an onsite interview. Here are my own personal reasons against working for a FAANG company:

Facebook/Google: Surveillance capitalism at its finest; working for one of these would be using my talents to further the greatest privacy-violating data collection regime (with virtually zero government oversight) the world has ever seen. I'd rather give up programming entirely and work retail.

Amazon: less objectionable than FB/Goog, but only slightly. They treat their non-engineer employees like complete crap, and I've heard that the quality of life even on the engineering side is very much dependent on the org you end up in and your manager.

Apple: Their privacy game is much stronger than any of the above, and I use their devices daily. Their walled gardens and locked-down devices mean they are a far cry from the hacker-friendly Apple I remember as a kid in the 80s. Their culture also seems very secretive and rather cult-like which leaves a bad taste in my mouth (though maybe this is improving since Steve's death?)

Netflix: by far the least objectionable FAANG, many fewer privacy concerns and the product is good IMHO. However, they have a hard policy against remote work, at least for the team(s) I was looking at, and I don't want to live anywhere near SF Bay. This is the only reason I ended the interview process with them.

Aside from all of the above and even if you disagree with everything I said, FAANGs are just so huge that the incremental value you add by joining is likely to be tiny. I've spent the last ~10 years working at startups to mid-size companies (from 5 up to 200 people) and I feel that my work is much more impactful than it could ever be at a FAANG.

I've had a similar experience - only ever got to the point of turning down an onsite.

I'd add one other issue to Apple (which would otherwise be the most natural fit for me). Side Projects.

I love building and launching apps and side projects and at Apple, as I understand it, that's a no-no. That's why so many devs left to set up new projects.

I'm not sure why this is getting downvoted since it seems to be a pretty genuine and relevant post.

Perhaps it's because some HNers forgot, or somehow acquired downvote powers without ever learning, that downvotes apply only to replies that are in bad faith, nasty, or poorly argued; none of which applies here.

It's probably getting downvoted because it's not actually relevant. I'm not sure why there are so many comments here talking about refusing to interview or "rejecting" recruiter advances. The OP was very specific in wanting to hear from people who rejected an offer for another offer.

Instead a lot of these comments are from people who seem to have an axe to grind against the companies themselves. It's fine to have ethical or practical disagreements with FAANG companies, but it's not relevant to the OP's question about why someone would go as far as receiving an offer and then decline to accept it.

To be fair, the narrow question would have been far more compelling 10-15 years ago, when these companies were both less-huge and had largely unvarnished reputations as being the best large companies for software developers to work. 10 years ago, sour grapes would have been a lot more obvious and valid answers would have been quite interesting. Today, not wanting to work for Google or Facebook is rather mundane.

I don’t mean this in a snotty way, but I am curious what your company does.

This is not a judgement of your take. I’m merely offering my perspective.

I’ve worked at a large oil and gas exploration company for a couple years, fintech for several more years, and before all that I had two back to back internships at a nationwide insurance company. Since then, I’ve hopped around a few of the FAANGS you listed.

The other companies paid me less, but they were not less stressful, nor did they have a better work environment or company culture. As a matter of fact, the culture is fairly reminiscent of Office Space (and I don’t mean in a funny way). One of these companies did some fairly negligent things around the last recession. The oil and gas company treats people like less than humans and taught me what ageism means. They would hold the lunch and learns where they told us to tell family and friends that earthquakes are in no way related to fracking. They literally walked out everyone over 50 during the industry downturn when I was there. The insurance company had massive layoffs while I was interning before my senior year in college and replaced them with offshore “IT”.

My post is not a defense of FAANGs. I’m just saying all my other experiences were worse and paid significantly less.

Where do we go from here? I’m not exactly an entrepreneurial type.

I'd rather not give away too much personally identifying information, but I recently joined a company in the media production software/hardware space that has been around for a couple of decades but still has a small-ish "startup-y" vibe. The culture is great, everyone is friendly and the work-life balance seems amazing so far (I have a family, so that was important to me). I'm working on tools that help creative amateurs and professionals do great work. It's not curing cancer or solving world hunger but I can go home happy with how I'm using my skills.

Before that, I was in several small companies in ad-tech. I didn't feel great about the work, but the cultures were also laid back and family-friendly. Non-FAANG companies with great culture are out there; please don't settle :)

Edit: if you're looking for the highest-paying jobs, you are correct in that often times, looking at a basket of job offers, FAANGs will offer the highest comp levels. If getting the highest possible compensation is your only criteria I think you are going to have a much tougher time finding compelling non-FAANG offers (though conversations with former colleagues lead me to believe that high-comp non-FAANG offers are indeed out there). I've chosen to prioritize my own happiness and time with my family over high compensation, and I can get by on the lesser (but still high in relative terms) comp offered by smaller firms.

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