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Comment by code_biologist | Hacker News Reader

I'll match your anecdote with mine. I'm an engineering leader at a small company that has worked at FAANG. I have personal mixed feelings about working at FB, but it's a very strong positive signal about someone's engineering ability (and comp expectations lol). Send any good coders you toss out because they worked at FB my way!!

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I’ll match your anecdote with mine. I’ve been everything from CTO to lead engineer. I’ve made sure we always pay well above average for every role because I’d rather have one exceptional engineer than 10 regular ones.

FAANG on your resume is an instant disqualification.

CTO and lead engineer of what size companies? How big was the tree of reports under you? What is the band of your total compensation recently? $100-200k? $500-1000k?

Honestly sounds like a bit of cope, especially if you've tried hiring in the past 10 years.

I’m not going to dox myself so you’re going to get some fuzz.

Largest? 400-1500.

Smallest? 30-70.

Compensation was highly variable.

FAANG employees are liabilities best avoided, everyone in leadership positions knows it.

You're not going to dox yourself with compensation bands or something more specific than 400-1500. There are way too many people like that, and comp is not very public info.

Are you working in Europe as part of an old tech / non-tech company and the most you've ever made is $300k/yr or are you actually competing on the same level as big tech companies compensation wise where director+ who manages 300-500 makes $+1m/yr?

There are highly paid small places that are not FANG that still pay FANG or better, but they have really high standards. I want to know if your one of those, or one of those who as part of an ego protection cope say FANG is bad.

Now if you were a startup manager, yeah I can get why you might want to avoid FANG because you don't want people with big company habits in your small company that is trying to go fast, but usually those people say that out right, and they also tend to explicitly hire FANG types to scale their engineering org after a certain scale, because startup style stops working after your engineering org gets to a certain size.

“ FAANG employees are liabilities best avoided, everyone in leadership positions knows it.”

I literally know a couple of unicorn founders in my personal life. They don’t think that. You’re full of shit and are probably a shit leader (if you’re not bluffing) if you make categorically false statements with such conviction (much like the former president).

Can you please name your company? I haven't worked at FAANG but I most definitely would not want to work for a company like yours.

I would like to know this as well. Anyone willing to write off literally millions of engineers because they happened to work at some huge companies is someone worth avoiding.

> literally millions of engineers

It’s tens of thousands, tops. And let’s be honest, most of them are highly overrated.

> because they happened to work at some huge companies

Because they made the choice to work at some incredibly evil corporations. Give them some credit, they didn’t sleepwalk into their roles. They did it for that fat cash, and they sold their morals out to do so.

Jokes on them, I have the “fat cash” now and get to choose who I hire. Turns out I’m not a fan of the people who sold out.

Sounds like raises would be a life and death struggle at your company.

This comes off as rather petty, impetuous and dictatorial.

So what's the company?

> Because they made the choice to work at some incredibly evil corporations

FAANG are not incredibly evil corporations.

They are average evil, and incredibly successful.

If you are CTO at another company and you think your company is less evil, it's probably just less successful and you’re blinded to its evil by your vested interest in changing the “less successful” part.

Not going to dox myself.

> I haven't worked at FAANG

I doubt that.

> but I most definitely would not want to work for a company like yours.

You do you. But I make sure we pay way above average, I want the best people and the best people don’t work for Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Google.

So how do you hire the best people? Seems like most employers focus on name-brand resumes and leetcode. I've never met anyone who does an actual substantial interview.

I’m not perfect. I like to hire people slowly, and meet them in person where I can.

But I’ve definitely made mistakes, and so far every hire I’ve honestly regretted worked for a megacorp prior to me hiring them.

What kind of mistakes did you make, what kind of bad hires did you have? I'm curious what kind of flaws would correlate with having worked for a big company before.

Where do you think the best people work, and how did you come to that conclusion?

Lots of places. See, the best people have a lot of options. That’s implicit.

Given the diversity of rewarding roles available to them, the best people aren’t pressured to accept morally compromising positions.

What’s the pay for someone with 10-15 years experience and is “the best people”?

It entirely depends on the role.

My point is I make sure my companies pay well. I want every employee to feel like they’re robbing me.

But I also want to make sure that I have as few employees as possible.

I personally wouldn’t hold it against someone for working at FB. Life and people are way more complicated (or not complicated, for that matter) than what you’ve reduced it down to. For one thing, consider that just because you exclude people who worked at FAANG, you’re not actually accounting for all the other thousand ways people can behave immorally or amorally. Screening out FAANG employees doesn’t actually get you very far in this regard. So it just looks like you’re harping on this one thing. Do you screen candidates who you think associate with politics you think are immoral? Or who have worked at tobacco companies? Etc.

That said I appreciate your attitude here. These companies are civilizationally damaging. It’s good to keep repeating that. I’m just not sure your approach makes sense.

What about Microsoft? Do their employees get a pass because the company wasn’t included in Jim Cramer’s acronym? It seems odd to single Cramer’s stock picks out specifically. What about Philip Morris ex-employees? Palantir? HSBC or any other evil investment bank? I think those three have done far more evil, but you’ll consider their alumni because they are not specifically “FAANG”? So odd to single out five specific companies that are only associated with each other because a TV personality made an acronym out of them.

There is plenty of evil. FAANG has no lock on it. Microsoft, Oracle, ransom gangs, Goldman Sachs. Wanting to get out of them ought to be a mark in one's favor.

Not sure what makes Netflix evil, though. Clue?

You’re a person of great conviction and superior morality — who dares not name the company and reveal their identity. I’m amused.

“ I want the best people and the best people don’t work for Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Google.”

Tell me when you hire a Yann LeCun or Jitendra Malik. Your claim is random shit-talk that’s not verifiable.

How do the best people avoid working for CEOs who accept buyouts from FAANG?

With your remarks of you’re in control now with all the power and such. Like the other commenter said, this sounds like Coping and grand standing.

You do you brother, I’m not here to prove myself to you. Just another non existent terminal.

What? I don’t know what you wrote. However all of your attention seeking and grand standing does appear you are seeking something from others and are coping hard to have yourself believe you are not a sell out like every one else. Why you have to frame things so negatively is beyond me. I would not do so myself.

in which case it isn’t selling out. It is living life as an average person getting through life

If you're going to judge people for working at faang, you better never shop at Walmart or Amazon, never buy any foreign electronics because they're made with child labor, work for a non profit that doesn't shovel money away from those who produce it into the hands of shareholders that control the public policy allowing for atrocities like DuPont, never buy anything with Teflon in it, take the bus instead of owning a car, and boycotting cable and internet companies. We're all in the same exploitative evil system, get off your high horse and stop judging people for being employed. The workers aren't the evil, it's the people who call the shots and make the investments. If Jeff Bezos wants to go to space, he's going to space whether you help or not, so might as well take what you can get.

> If you're going to judge people for working at faang, you better never shop at Walmart or Amazon

I do my best, but I fully admit I am not perfect in this regard.

> allowing for atrocities like DuPont, never buy anything with Teflon in it,

I completely agree with you here. The leadership of these corps should have faced serious jail time for C8 contamination.

> We're all in the same exploitative evil system, get off your high horse and stop judging people for being employed.

I get it, but look at it from my perspective. I have a lot of money. I can hire people based on X or Y. I have the luxury of selecting skilled, amazing people who did not work for the system. Why would I see that as a bad thing?

From my perspective, your money came from the same system, and you're acting on blanket baseless prejudice.

Yep

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28831227

> FAANG on your resume is an instant disqualification.

Is it only FAANG, or are there others that you blacklisted? E.g. is MS on the list as well? How long is the list? Genuinely curious.

You're doing your company a great disservice if you think no great engineer had ever joined Meta.

This is a monumentally stupid take. I would never want to work for you if your judgement is this poor and politically reactionary.

Does your company explicitly state this criteria in the job description?

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