NGL, I'd jump through hoops for 250k + other compensation
Part of why this has stuck around for so long is that so many people are willing to do that because it's a life-altering amount of money
Part of why this has stuck around for so long is that so many people are willing to do that because it's a life-altering amount of money
The frame of reference here is important, otherwise average is pretty meaningless since we have no objective list of what an average developer consists of.
As a hiring manager I view Google on someone's resume as a non-signal. If however they are the sort of person who draws attention to having worked at Google I view that as a negative signal.
They were also not "walking in to captain" anything. They were applying for standard engineering jobs. Think of an average individual-contributor software engineer from, say, Facebook. Is a smaller company really going to hire them as Director Of Engineering (a totally different job than software engineering), just because of the company name on the resume? That sounds absurd.
I was very skeptical about this, then I worked for one. Now I get it.
All I see is that faang is a term for expert code monkey.
I'm not quite sure where the GP got stressful, but it is soul-sucking if you expect your work to be interesting, impactful, and creative, which doesn't really happen apart from a few core or research teams. There is a ton of piping and rewriting of frameworks going on all the time, even when it need not be extremely useful. This is the main reason I found it thoroughly drab—even though it is likely that the lines of code I wrote there are likely to touch many orders of magnitude more people than anything else I ever work on for the rest of my life.
I guess that's just how it goes, though.
A number of people (myself included) seek to align work and passion all in one, which is fine, except it's certainly not the only (or, indeed, even close to "best") way to live and work. I've been lucky because my passion is in a field that now actually has applications in both theory and practice, after 50-or-so years of lying in relative academic obscurity.
The point is: if you care primarily about things that aren't your work (and this is true for literally 99.9% of people in the world, and is probably much healthier than the alternative) then FAANG is phenomenal in every possible way. The perks, compensation, and freedom to do pretty much anything are incredible. Quant (which nets around the same, if not slightly more profit) certainly does not fall in this category, due to its insane hours, and most other jobs with sane hours and good work-life balance don't pay nearly (read: really even close to) as much, or aren't as secure, or have anywhere close to the perks. It really is about the best gig you can get, if you can swing it.
On the other hand, for the weird, obsessive .1% of people (e.g., me) who would be happy to work all day in their mother's basement so long as it's interesting work, then FAANG (or, at least, many teams within it) can feel almost beside the point. Which is also fine!
I guess the point is that it all depends on what you want out of work and out of, well, not-work!
My understanding is that those companies themselves also freely acknowledge that interviewing is hard. Due to the sheer volume of applicants, fast algorithms questions is the most reasonable compromise they can find at the moment. If you were in the position of the interviewer, it would also be hard for you to come up with an alternative that works for all sides involved. So instead of complaining about this reality, one needs to face up to the challenge.
It is actually a paradox: You seem to be unfree and doing something pointless when you were grinding interview questions. But after you've made it, it would suddenly be very easy for you to have a lot of freedom and security in your life with all the capital you have accumulated. In a sense it's like how college entrance exams work. It's unfortunate but again, if no better practical solution could be found at the moment, one just has to face the reality and do it. It could even be fun. Talking about "ideals" wouldn't get you anywhere in the real world.
Regarding work-life balance, perks and life quality, just as the comments who replied to you pointed out, working for big tech is most likely one of the best options you can have out there, compared to many smaller-scale companies.
The one valid thing I think you may get by not working for FAANG is complete freedom in shaping what you're working on. However this is hard anywhere unless you're the founder/executive of the company yourself. If that's what you're after and you have the safety to pursue it, sure. However, in terms of working as a common employee, there are very few possible reasons why a place could be better than big tech.