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Comment by daviddever23box | Hacker News Reader

Why the fixation on FAANG?

There are plenty of opportunities out there, with large corporations, that would allow you to grow as a developer, learning useful production skills as you go.

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I'm reading the parent post as essentially asking about someone who is not looking "to grow as a developer, learning useful production skills" but has already learned the useful production skills and grown as a developer (i.e. already is at "intermediate-to-senior level"), and wants to convert those sklls into large amounts of cash, thus the interest in FAANG as opposed to large corporations which pay less (or are expected to).

Some people just want a paycheck with low minimal work required. I worked at a FAANG and I can guarantee you that many people do not care much about growth and development. A lot are just there for big pay and less work.

The big pay and less work is a killer combination for both employee and corporation. Not only do you produce less code, which people think is an asset but is really a liability, you take more time to do so. Like the idea of ping-pong tables is parodied but it makes sense for profitable companies and in moderation. The employees have to be adults about it, use the ping-pong table specifically to accomplish work, to think. There's so many choices you could take, and the fewer you take the better, you just have to make sure you take the best choices. Mulling things over is good. Time spent on making decisions is time well spent, you could do it quicker but only with a dartboard. Maybe instead of spending an hour on the question and a year on the answer, spend a year on the question and the answer will come in an hour.

As long as there's trust and a work ethic on both sides, it's very virtuous.

Easiest way to make $300k+ working 40 hours a week.

The second half of that statement is questionable, isn't it? I have not worked at a FAANG company, but my distinct impression is that one trades time for a significant chunk of money.

> The second half of that statement is questionable, isn't it?

Yeah, the time I worked at Google most people worked less than 40 hours a week.

> but my distinct impression is that one trades time for a significant chunk of money.

Right, I traded 30-40 hours a week (a significant amount of time) for about $250k a year (a significant chunk of money).

I know other FAANG are a bit more harsh to work at than Google, but I haven't heard of any place where 40 hours weeks isn't the norm. Except Amazon, but Amazon is just a regular toxic company, you find such at every paygrade.

That's fair. However, $250/year is also not what I consider a "FAANG salary" (whatever that means). That's roughly the situation I'm in, in a Series A startup.

I could be totally wrong, but my sense is that $300+ per annum is almost always accompanied by well over 40hours/week.

> However, $250/year is also not what I consider a "FAANG salary" (whatever that means).

I worked there as a junior. The people I worked with had 500k+ and didn't work more than me. I have very low living expenses though and didn't want to stay in the HCOL area so I quit because I got more money than I needed.

Timeframe is probably a factor too.

One of my friends who works at Netflix got a ~$270k offer many many years ago. That is probably unspeakably and impossibly low for Netflix if you were to get an offer there today, but probably high for that time?

Damn, cool! All the interview hoops you have to jump through kinda seem reasonable in that light.

FAANG isn't a monolith. Facebook and Netflix working life seem worlds apart even if the comp is in the same neighborhood.

My understanding is Facebook & Netflix > Google > Amazon & Apple when it comes to compensation?

If you add the MULA companies, I believe ULA are on the higher side while M is on the lower.

FAANG companies literally pay about twice as much, as random regular tech companies.

Its absurd.

not really... I went to 10 different corporations and 1 FAAN. FORTUNE50, startups, finance, retail, software, electronics. there is nothing like faang. pros and cons included

I'm in a similar boat, though I am not in a FAANG, but in a company arguably on a similar tier. I agree 100%.

If I have any advice for current CS college students, it would be to do everything possible to get into a FAANG or FAANG-like tech company.

The monetary compensation speaks for itself, but all of the other non-monetary perks will also contribute to making your future career better, and your daily work more pleasant if not enjoyable.

That's not to say FAANG is perfect - no company is. But no matter the ugly warts FAANG and similar companies have, most other companies (especially non-tech companies where tech is an unrespected cost center) are usually worse.

Which leads me to my second piece of advice for college students - if you don't or can't make it into FAANG or FAANG-like companies, do everything possible to get into a company where tech is a profit center, or at least respected.

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