The way it was once explained to me: there are three broad skills that are relevant to succeeding at a FAANG:

A) Technical brilliance/mastery

B) Willingness to grind/endure

C) Political savvy/ruthlessness/schmoozing

Any combination of two of these is sufficient to progress in you career. All three is even better. I’ve met A+B’s, B+C’s and A+C’s and they all do pretty well. If you just have one of these, you’re not going to get very far.

Maybe this is also true for other “non-FAANG but big” companies, I don’t know.