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Comment by NeverFade | Hacker News Reader

Besides the usual advice, this observation is very interesting:

> Applying for senior engineering positions (>E4) in FANG companies is one of the best ways to get into them.

This comment by a veteran senior engineer confirms to me that Facebook, just like most other FANGs, does a poor job of promoting from within.

There are multiple comments to the same effect from many other FANG employees: It's much easier to get recruited for senior roles from the outside, then get promoted from the inside.

The result of this failure is that job-hopping is the most valid career strategy for aspiring seniors.

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I think you’re misunderstanding the author. The sentence after the one you quoted is

> Most of these companies have solid internship programs, and almost all E3 (entry-level) positions are offered to returning interns.

The author is saying that getting an entry-level position without an internship is very difficult at these companies and so if you want to work at one, applying as a senior engineer is a much easier route.

FWIW, I work at one of those companies and have found senior roles and promotions to actually be pretty biased toward longtime employees

I don't necessarily agree with your observation. The issue here is that companies like Facebook hire a ton of entry-level (E3) engineers each year that come from their intern pool. Although many of them get promoted, not everyone can pass the bar. The need for more senior engineers is persistent in the company. Another thing to mention is that typically there is no headcount for E3 engineers at Facebook (besides returning interns) for external hires.

Not sure the source of downvotes, what you are saying seems true. From my experience they will generally not even interview a new grad who has experience for E3 jobs with an internal referal.

What do you mean "pass the bar"? Promotion is a process of supporting and grooming someone for advancement once they have been selected by the promoter. There is no bar to pass.

What companies do you know work this way? Most of the FAANG companies I know only promote you once they think you’ve met that level of proficiency (not to groom you into the position later)

This is a major issue that causes major frustrations to the people working on such companies.

I have heard similar comments from multiple FAANG employees.

It's worth noting that Facebook has a separate recruiting team for higher-level hires, starting at either IC5 or (more likely) IC6. In any case I know because it included me. From what I can tell, hiring at IC7 and above is so hard that the process for most candidates deviates in some way from what's usually described. I saw some really great hires (that might otherwise not have happened) that way, and some that were ... less great. Basically it increases the variance that the standard process is constructed to minimize at lower grades.

I interviewed at FB and Amazon last summer and I asked how long people stay once they are hired. At both companies I was told the average tenure is about 1.5 - 2 years. That was a big yiiiiikes moment for me. People don't stick around long enough to get promoted.

> People don't stick around long enough to get promoted.

Why do you think that is? Perhaps because the odds of getting promoted are smaller than hopping to a better position in a different company, which is what I argue.

If the odds of internal promotion were good enough, why would these employees take the risk and hassle of hopping?

Very good point and definitely something I can personally relate to.

RSUs from your signing bonus vest fully at 2 years (atleast at Amazon). A lot of people bail as soon as that vesting happens.

That screams terrible job. If it's a good place to work people wouldn't immediately leave.

It also says something about the people that are willing to stick around. Not good things.

This is not true. RSUs vest fully after 4 years. They begin vesting (meaningfully) after 2 years.

I don't remember the fully vest time at amazon but at FB it was 4 years.

IMO this is the wrong metric to look at. Any company that has experienced hyper growth (like FB or Amazon) will see very low average tenures simply because of math. The right metric is avg tenure at time of attrition.

Typically when tenure is mentioned, it’s only referring to the people who were hired and left (not people who are still working)

> The result of this failure is that job-hopping is the most valid career strategy for aspiring seniors.

The same is true at my work which is not FAANG, but one of the big four in its industry. I guess it's just the nature of corporations.

Not at all, Facebook does the best job out of any FAANG at promoting, and most E5+ are internal promoted. External E5 hires are less common, external E6 hires are rare.

Netflix does well here too (I worked there for 5 years). There are no levels for ICs at Netflix. You can hop over to the management track if you like which does have levels. But ICs can grow and take on more responsibility by their own volition. Your impact gets reflected in the annual compensation adjustment.

Either this or junior/non-senior engineers at FB are already long gone before they have a chance to be promoted to senior because they job hopped somewhere else.

working at different organizations builds engineering and emotional maturity, no?

Perhaps, but rampant job-hopping as a norm is definitely not the outcome these tech companies aspire for.

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