Ask HN: Anyone else feel trapped in FANG? How did you get out? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Anyone else feel trapped in FANG? How did you get out?

103 pointsawsthrow1234117 comments

Hi HN,

I’ve been working at a FANG for 2 years now and I feel like my career goals and interests are not aligned with where I’m at. Outside of my FANG I was a go-getter who loves learning new things and taking on hard problems. Inside my company I have tried over the past 2 years to propose different solutions to hard problems and I just get blown off.

I’m good at my job I already got promoted in 1 year and am moving up. I am making more money than I expected, but at work I’m not able to express myself creatively or do things outside the box. I just get assigned straightforward work from my manager that the product managers and “leadership” assign to our team with barely any input on the overall project or ability to propose new projects.

I feel like if I stay here I will just get stuck in a cycle of never accomplishing my goals but I’m scared to move teams or companies or build a startup because I have a good manager, a good comp and my job isn’t that stressful.

I could become more involved at work in building paper reading groups or other kinds of side projects to creatively express myself at work but I don’t want to be the person whose life revolves around their FANG.

Anyone else feel like this? What did you do?

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My advice would be to put your head down, live like a monk, and save/invest money. Get promoted as far as you can, but don't burn yourself out. If you see yourself having a family someday, spend your free time on finding a spouse.

Five years in, you'll have a huge pile of cash and an insane chunk on your resume that will almost certainly guarantee you an interview wherever you want. Once you hit that point, take some time off and do literally anything. Start a startup, be a contractor, get a new degree.

You have stumbled onto the sort of prosperity (easy low-stress job) that 99.95% of the world literally dreams about. To throw it away because you're not "creatively expressing yourself" would be foolish.

This advice doesn't apply if you're a relentlessly competitive founder type like Gates or Bezons, but if you were of that mentality, I doubt you'd be having the same troubles you are.

The downside of this advice is while you make money and your experience will look good on the resume, you might not have learned that much in the end and in some ways wasted your time and life.

Also if you want to go back to earlier stage companies or different places than FAANG, the FAANG experience is not some golden ticket, but can be also a potential flag to those who know how things work. Basically a flag to verify can this person still build things outside of bigco or are they just a professional coaster at this point. It can be surprising to people that even though you did work at Facebook or Google, you are not automatically a good fit for some other company.

My personal way of thinking has been always to join companies or pick jobs where I learn and that pushes me in some way, especially while I'm still young. I also did work at FAANG but the main thing I learned was how manage politics. Also within FAANG there is always teams or roles where you are actually challenged but majority of the roles are fairly easy.

Ideally at each role you learn something that improves and expands your skills. Each role prepares you for your next role or the step you want to take in your career. Taking home a paycheck and being a professional coaster doesn't help you make progress or make your life interesting (not to say that work is all your life but it is part of it).

The synthesis is to professionally coast at work, but have another type of work like your hobbies or learnings outside. Sometimes they are the same too.

We’ve all wasted our time and our lives in some way. May as well have an ungodly amount of money after a few years.

>"an insane chunk on your resume that will almost certainly guarantee you an interview wherever you want"

So true, I worked with a guy that was mostly hired because he had worked at Microsoft. It wasn't even long. He was lazy and mostly at the bottom of our team's ability. Working at the right place will open doors for you.

BTW, OP, the best ideas aren't always the ones that get implemented. The ideas that get implemented are those that the leaders feel comfortable with and come from the people they feel comfortable listening to. There's a whole world of work related politics that you should learn to get your ideas heard. If you don't learn to play the game you'll have the same problem every where you go.

This is a seen in The Godfather II that always comes to mind when people say they aren't being heard.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgHXHtHSsNo

I did this but didn’t get promoted at all. Never tried to. Did the bare minimum. Bounced between 5 managers before bouncing myself out of the company (Google). Lived dirt cheep and stockpiled cash. Used all of my energy during that time to dream of cool ideas. Implementing them now and have zero pressure to go back. Would not trade my current state of existence for anything.

Life is too short for advice like this, it really is.

Then again I’ve rarely had the discipline to stay put and make a short term sacrifice for long term gain when it comes to my daily work.

It is critically important to me to be fulfilled daily in my work and explore my ideas and passions.

To me, even if I was never financially well off, but I got to pursue my passions and creativity, that would be a life well spent.

Remember, the journey is the reward, not the end.

Disclaimer: I am a college drop out, couldn’t even be patient long enough for that.

> To me, even if I was never financially well off, but I got to pursue my passions and creativity, that would be a life well spent.

That's pretty difficult to obtain. For typical creative passions, you need to be in the top 1% for them to sustain you.

I don’t know what a typical creative passion is.

I am into product development, particularly products that are what I would call “full stack.”

Electronics, firmware, software, and web stack all developed for the product.

Are you passionate about product development within a confines of somebody else' company? Then it's definitely not a common passion.

If, on the other hand, you're passionate about software development and electronics, then it's a very common passion and you have to be in the top 1% to make a living out of your creations. Of course, there are subniches with various degrees of difficulty - it's easier to make money on some technically simple B2B SaaS than on consumer robots for example.

I would be less passionate in someone else's company than my own. However, I could do it passionately for a company that I believe in.

I don't understand your point. Isn't there a massive chunk of people who are passionate about "software development and electronics" that make a living off of it?

> To throw it away because you're not "creatively expressing yourself" would be foolish.

These golden shackles chained me to my faang job for a over a decade. Now I look back and my youth is gone. I have less energy , less creative drive, less inclination to shift my brain into a different groove to spin on. Makes me sick when i think about the fact that i gave my youth away to a corporation. I was just a 'young blood' willing to bang out code on demand.

I look back my past decade and I have no idea what I was doing. Its all just a blur.

Yet at the end you have the gold, so to speak. At smaller creative places you may end up feeling fulfilled and entirely unable to support yourself or family financially. It's not binary either. There is a spectrum.

I spent years on creative pursuits at college in gaming, got no money for it, then took a corp job. Ultimately I regret pouring out so much creative energy, especially since it was modding based on IP I didn't own. Anyway, my creative pursuits today are so modest and routine it would make the younger me scoff. And yet now I'm satisfied with a corporate job and hobbies like home improvement and occasional game playing and podcast recording.

This is great hindsight advice. It may be hard to see from the perspective of the OP though.

The way you describe is how it is in FAANG (I work at one, haven’t at others). Until you get to a certain level, you implement what others (PMs, higher level eng) put together. If you keep advancing in your career you may have creative freedom in FAANG. But it will never be like that of a startup - which is how I read your post.

Doing creative work for big co, someone else’s idea or a startup is overrated when you look back 10 years later. This is just my opinion but I believe it is very common and comes with age.

Good luck. Sounds like you have a few good options.

So you are recommending they let their soul potentially die with advice like, "'creatively expressing yourself' would be foolish" in exchange for "a huge pile of cash"? Do you consider that when they're done climbing the corporate ladder--whenever that might be, if ever--the version of them that "loves learning new things and taking on hard problems" might not be a fraction of what it once was, or might altogether be gone?

Also, I highly disagree that FAANG jobs are "easy, low-stress" jobs, but maybe your experience is significantly different.

Your soul doesn't die, but there is moral injury and it can heal. I spent a decade in big tech letting my soul languish with a few spurts of expression, and it took a solid six months and ketamine for my soul to flourish.

At this point, I can't even express how grateful I am and full of joy since my life is just so great. Yes, I suffered, but it is was so worth it.

Here is the core problem in my life: I hired a private chef which tilts the retirement math out of whack, but I have three decades to solve this problem. It's a fantastic problem to have, and if I had taken opportunities to be happy then I couldn't be here maximizing my own personal creativity.

Right now, I'm building my own platform to mess around and have fun: https://www.adama-platform.com/ and I'm exploring the nature of what I like to make and embracing myself for random detours.

> This advice doesn't apply if you're a relentlessly competitive founder type like Gates or Bezons

Eh Bezos worked a couple different jobs. I’m sure he had these thoughts and doubts at that age.

Not to mention.. having a golden spoon in your mouth puts you into that 'entrepreneurial' mindset from birth, because being an entrepreneur validates all your privilege.

True, but the golden spoon alone is not enough.

I think developing an artistic hobby is incredibly beneficial right now. The ability to compound rote memorization with natural curiosity leads to original merit in creating beautiful experiences in the minds of others.

This person has the ability to make that possibly serious with enough prepared latitude in making the jump if/when the soul desires. Worst case outcome: a fun social life.

Where does rote memorization come into this story...?

Great advice. Just stick with it for now, for sometime. It's always disorienting in a new environment and takes some time to get used to it. Even if it doesn't meet your expectations or goals, sometime it is better to revaluate your expectations to ensure it is realistic with your abilities, goals and how the world actually is. Especially if the working environment is otherwise nice - decent pay, good boss, good co-workers. In your specific case, if your work is not providing you enough intellectual challenge, I'd suggest you start working on some personal projects. Especially if you fear you are losing touch with newer tech. Better yet, find people in the field you are interested and try to work together on some opensource / personal projects.

This is good advice only because FAANG or should I say MAMAA companies have an enormous amount of cash compared to everyone else on earth. A historical aberration and a near monopoly. Utilize that advantage while you can. The last time a Company had similar cash levels was East India Company 300 years ago.

> FAANG or should I say MAMAA companies have an enormous amount of cash compared to everyone else on earth

I wouldn't be so sure. There's plenty of conglomerates around the world with huge piles of cash.

This is a nice advice. Please dont box yourself to your work only. You can express creatively outside work. You can have outside-work projects, enjoy life without to much stress. You can take on advance you education, develop a hobby.

I second this op. Also relatively early in my career and in fang and have been circling on this line of thought as the "optimal" way to spend the next few years. We genuinely have it too good and should take advantage of it.

You might be greatly exaggerating with the 99.95% number. It's a common narrative to "have the bravery to leave the corporate job/comfort zone and achieve your dreams"

i think it is under-exaggerated. maybe 99.995%.

Why not work on a side project or contribute to open source? You can still learn a lot while still maintaining your day job.

I checked my stock rewards balance one day, realized I didn't need to work anymore, and then quit. It's worked well so far.

Your story reminds me of a Peter Thiel anecdote on "Leaving Alcatraz." [1] The gist of the story is Peter Thiel is living his "tracked" life. He goes to an elite school, studies law, joins an elite law firm... And discovers he doesn't like it, so he quits. He's a couple months in. When he's quitting his colleague tells him "It's nice to know it is possible to escape Alcatraz." But, of course, it's possible for anyone to "escape" the doors aren't locked and leaving is always allowed. You are made a prisoner to the status quo by your own fear of change.

1 - (I think this is the right clip but my speakers are currently not working) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=in2ktnsfwkw

At the very end of the clip he says: "psychologically this was hard to do, because so much of their identity gets wrapped up in these educational badges...".

This resonated with me, but because of an opposite experience, I didn't go to a good school, and for a long time had imposter syndrome any time I started a new job. It took many years to internally get over that.

> my job isn’t that stressful.

If it wasn't that stressful, you wouldn't be posting this. Feeling unfulfilled is stressful. You are stressed and you are probably burning out (yes it's possible to burn out on boredom).

Change things. Start with easy low risk changes and work your way out from there. If you want to stay in the job you have now, you likely need to change your approach to how you try to make an impact, because what you're doing now obviously isn't working.

But there are likely teams in your company where you'd feel more fulfilled. If not, being promoted at one megacorp is basically catnip for recruiters at others.

> Feeling unfulfilled is stressful. You are stressed and you are probably burning out (yes it's possible to burn out on boredom).

It's stressful, but only when one feels they must climb that maslow ladder (and frankly, probably jealous of the stories from successful people who seems to have done so).

A perspective change is another way out - your job is just a job. You can merely do adequate (and by the sounds of it, the OP's capable enough to not be challenged, which means they can accomplish all tasks easily).

Leave mental energy for weekends on hobbies and interests outside of job. It could be programming/software engineering related, but doesn't have to be.

Take leave often, and consider working part time if salary allows it. Use that extra time to focus on hobbies and interests. "Rest and Vest" is the phrase i heard thrown around for such behaviour, and i absolutely consider it something one should do if one is lucky enough to be in that position.

The phenomenon I'm describing here has nothing to do with climbing any ladder, corporate or Maslow. Being bored for 8 hours a day every day and not really even being able to distract your brain from it like you potentially can with less mental labor is just not very pleasant, and many people can't just "put up with it" for years on end without it turning into self-harm.

There is even a term for it: bore-out. Been there, it's not a happy place.

My 4 big reasons for wanting to leave my current FAANG:

1. I'm not learning things that feel relevant outside the company. Our build processes, templating language, version control, and even our IDE are all proprietary and internal-only. It requires a lot of work to master these things, and that mastery is not transferable anywhere else.

2. I continually scan the internal job boards, and have yet to see another position that looks significantly more appealing.

3. The amount of red tape required to make any change, while expected and understandable for enterprise software, makes it hard to feel innovative or creative.

4. It takes 2 minutes to recompile/reload after every trivial changes. This is hugely detrimental to my "flow," and this is unlikely to ever be fixed due to the size of the codebase.

Most of the FAANGs have a variety of different domains you can work on within the company, consider an internal transfer.

I don't know why this was down voted. Take Google for example: there's ads, cloud, search, Android OS, browser, productivity web apps, communication, YouTube, AR/VR, self driving cars, ... If you claim you can't find or network your way into work that interests you, I wouldn't be blaming Google for being monolithic.

Been that, did that, and now I'm out.

FANG's are fundamentally mature, and the key thing to understand is "Price's Law" which states that half of the work is done by the square root of the people. It's a brutal reality, and you will find yourself with a tremendous amount of muck to deal with.

The first challenge is to respect this as a fundamental property of big companies and a self-fulfilling despair.

My advice is to focus on a period of time towards just building and maximizing wealth. Find opportunities, talk to people, do what is asked of you, try to push limits on making things better. Once you have a nice bank account, then you can take freedom.

That's the enduring aspect of golden handcuffs because it's brutal to be bored, but then you have more freedom to explore and pick better opportunities. Right now, I'm living a monastic code machine lifestyle and it's pretty great.

https://www.adama-platform.com/2022/07/02/the-path-of-the-mo...

The second challenge is the discipline to suffer. My bias is to accept that there will be a time in your life where you must maximize your discipline, build wealth, and then balance for the later years.

I'm 40 and basically retired. Granted, I want to improve my cashflow as I recently hired a private chef, but that's a great problem to have.

>What did you do?

quit. I mean it's that simple really. If you don't like the job you're doing and it's not meaningful, get another job. You'll have a good resume, so that shouldn't be a practical issue.

I think any other advice is really just copium. Collecting more money and joining a knitting circle or the bowling club isn't fulfilling, neither is retiring at 40 and even in a non FANG dev job you likely earn twice a middle class wage, and the only thing you don't get back is your time. It's scary but nothing's worse than not changing and regretting it later.

You have one of the most desirable jobs in the world. Economic self-determination is a luxury of the rich, which you will be in a short while if you just stay put and keep working. Just get some hobbies outside work and stack money until you can afford to do nothing but what you want.

I used to aspire to work in FAANG or start my own startup.

I now live below the poverty line, using food stamps, have a child with a partner, am growing a community of supportive loving people, and am pursuing radically different projects of my own creation, including a culture construction carnival that's donation driven.

Economic self-determination is a luxury of people who have lots of money AND/OR creativity AND/OR willingness to live radically.

Fuck the norms. Postactivism is where it's at for meaningful life changes. That's a relatively recent word that effectively acknowledges that activism will always be necessary, so it makes sense to be in a way that accomplishes activism as a side effect, rather than setting aside time to do activism.

There's no way I would trade what I'm doing now for money. And the things me and my friends are working on require life skills FAANG doesn't teach, like embracing death and communal healing.

OP: don't let the money fool you. There are so many ways to go about life not involving money. Developing an awareness of what constitutes universal human needs and how to meet them without money can help focus on figuring out ways to cut money out of your life. This can help you dial down your dependencies on money. It will also reinforce the idea that money is absolutely not a need. Finding and accessing gift economies (such as Buy Nothing) is an easy first step to learning how to meet needs without money. Learning to live without money includes developing the skills of need identification, strategy identification, asking for help in coming up with the previous things, asking for and receiving freely given things/help, abandoning shame & healing through trauma around gift giving/receiving, and offering/giving freely offered things/help.

Don't let haters sway you if you choose this path. Many people will try to shame or guilt you into not following this path with nonsense thinking like "you owe it to society to use money" or "you can't possibly cut out all money usage from your life and, even if you figure it out, you're a hypocrite if you use money in the meantime." Debt is a myth, especially debts to society. Hypocrisy is a shaming term for "in a transition from one state to another"; embrace messaged of hypocrisy as signs to keep going.

Keep calm and clown on.

> I now live below the poverty line, using food stamps, have a child with a partner, am growing a community of supportive loving people, and am pursuing radically different projects of my own creation, including a culture construction carnival that's donation driven.

Reading your whole post but coming to this, it reads like Frank Gallagher from Shameless.

It sounds like you’re capable of much more, but you choose to live on food stamps because “debt” is a myth, among other advice you gave to op.

100% disagree with everything you said. I definitely support food stamps and other forms of assistance for families in need and people who cannot support themselves, but you’re bragging about living off of others when you could support yourself.

Do better.

Everyone lives off others. I'm also autistic, anti-work, and believe any government only giving food to some, instead of offering it to all, is already oppressive.

Use whatever means necessary to meet those dreams if it harms nobody. Moralizing others actions along the way and catering to magical should-based thinking are efforts in futility.

Be real. Live shamelessly.

I choose to live with as little money as possible and that places me below the poverty line. Getting that money from an investor, government, employer, friend, or stranger is no different for me than getting money from family or any other source. Why limit oneself in a capitalist dystopia like that?

Would you consider getting out of your own way and maybe stop judging how people are going about doing things....or perhaps even get a little more curious about what's going on when you do judge them?

> Everyone lives off others. I'm also autistic, anti-work, and believe any government only giving food to some, instead of offering it to all, is already oppressive.

Why the need to tell us you’re autistic? It doesn’t justify nor is it a defense for how brazenly you brag about abusing the welfare state.

>Use whatever means necessary to meet those dreams if it harms nobody. Moralizing others actions along the way and catering to magical should-based thinking are efforts in futility.

No one can force you to be better. Only you can control what you do. Absolutely.

There are real families and single mothers in need. A grown, able bodied person bragging about abusing the system because they don’t feel they’re “harming anybody” really is shameful and embarrassing. But as you said, you choose to live “shamelessly”.

> any government only giving food to some, instead of offering it to all, is already oppressive.

if the "gov't" offers food to all for free, then who makes that food?

The only reason food is being offered for free in the US is because it's such a rich country that leeching off a few to give food to those in need is not a huge expense.

> Getting that money from an investor, government, employer, friend, or stranger is no different for me than getting money from family or any other source.

getting money from the gov't is different from getting it from any of the other sources you listed. The gov't money is taken from people in the country by "force". The other sources you mentioned are all voluntary and so is acceptable to take from.

> maybe stop judging how people are going about doing things

well, it's getting judged because this method of living is called being carried by others when you didn't have to be. Aka, taking advantage of the welfare state, or less charitably, leeching off the work of others. It's one thing for such welfare to be available to those who need it - it's another to expect your life to be paid for by taxpayers.

> if the "gov't" offers food to all for free, then who makes that food?

> The only reason food is being offered for free in the US is because it's such a rich country that leeching off a few to give food to those in need is not a huge expense.

I don't think any of the world's current governments are setup to ethically distribute food because none of them are founded on universal human needs. If they were, then they could be constructed from a framework of needs that makes sense and can be somewhat verified in reality. Instead, we paved over needs with moralistic rights. If you want to talk more about it, find me on facebook.

If there's no simple way to opt out of capitalism, every form of income is potentially coerced.

Pretending otherwise and then moralizing around the resulting worldview is an effort in denial.

You have no awareness of my needs as a person or the needs of my family members that allows you to determine whether or not I need assistance, government or otherwise. And I don't need to prove to you any of my universal needs. Nobody does. That's quite literally not your business, as in you've not been paid or otherwise summoned to study us.

If you want to, though, I'm open to hearing your assessments after having gone camping with us for a week.

And let's be very clear:

$700/mo to feed 2 adults and a child isn't expecting my life to be paid for by taxpayers. It's graciously receiving a little help each month with living within our values. It doesn't even cover the food bills each month. The US government's assistance programs don't allow one to simply live their life however they see fit.

You haven't even bothered to ask anything about my life. That's literally how uninformed on this opinion you are. You have no idea what I do with my time, where my daily efforts go, etc.

And you want to somehow shame me for receiving money from a coercive government?

Are you even TRYING to bring down this state with me? Because last I checked, the money for food gets alloted based on usage and demand, in part, and every penny worth of food I get is not a penny going to the military.

If you're not actively trying to take down the state, then go take a look at the morality of your complicity and complacency before coming at people for how they eat in this nightmare country, let alone meet any other needs. If you are actively trying to take down the state, find me on facebook and let's figure out some collaborative villainy. I've got a lot of stuff in the mix.

> It's graciously receiving a little help each month with living within our values.

No. This country was founded on a puritanical work ethic. Working hard and taking pride in it for its own sake is very cultural to the U.S. and is a core value going back to the founding colonies. Many people point out this exact difference in work cultures between the US and Europe.

Don't co-opt the word "our" and just smash your own values on top.

If you're on food stamps or other government benefits, you're economically dependent. Maybe your vision of self-determination is different than mine, but I wouldn't say that you have achieved it. (Parasitic dependence could certainly be a strategy for change, though I don't know that I would call it radical either)

I'm economically dependent if I can't do without that source of funneding. I can do without it and it would take a little extra work to set up our lives in such a way. That's what I'm working toward and I'm in no rush because there are more pressing issues at hand, like housing.

Also, CLEARLY it's radical to accept government funds to many people on this site who believe it shouldn't be done if one doesn't fit their idea of who or what government assistance is for.

> Also, CLEARLY it's radical to accept government funds to many people on this site who believe it shouldn't be done if one doesn't fit their idea of who or what government assistance is for.

People disagreeing doesn't make something radical. "Welfare is a social good" is a very mainstream position. "Welfare is a social evil" is also mainstream. Universal welfare is nearly mainstream, I wouldn't call that particularly radical either.

I think choosing to cut back on expenses and income to the point of living below the poverty line is radical and using government assistance to that end doesn't seem like something also commonly considered to be an option for doing so.

Radical or not, it's what I'm doing and I know very few people who do this. It sure seems radical to me because people seeking to stop using money is something I see something noted in the mainstream as radical. If what I'm describing is mainstream living and mainstream usage of government assistance, would you point me to where to find the rest of the people doing this? I could really benefit from more community support around such endeavors.

> There's no way I would trade what I'm doing now for money.

So what are you doing?

For the past 4 years, I've been a full-time stay-at-home parent experimenting heavily on how to nurture a child through anarchism. It is a full-time unpaid gig and I'm loving it.

Most parents do not understand how we do what we do because they're afraid to allow kids the freedom and empowerment we allow for. Friends have found it exhausting to hang out with us because their childhood traumas start ringing when they see the kid do things they never would've been allowed to do and, instead of processing their trauma, they suppress their emotions, which takes a lot of energy.

And now I'm starting a carnival circuit dedicated to culture hacking in order to help people repair/recover/revolutionize their cultures in order to better meet their needs.

Everything about this screams "Somebody please call Child Protective Services and get this guy committed"

If you start gaining followers....you're starting a cult

What are you reading into this? I'm very curious what specific quotes suggest to you something questionable is going on.

This is only going to end in disaster and life-long trauma for that child. Poor luck of the draw for that kid.

Would you go into more detail so we can better account for what you're fearing?

To be clear: I wouldn't quit doing this job for one that pays money.

I'd much rather work to make parenting a paying gig, since it's clearly exploited in modern society.

I am curious if you will find any useful advice here. I mean, there is some great advice in this thread, but it's really hard for anyone who isn't you to help in this situation.

Here are some questions you should ask yourself that might be helpful:

- If you were laid off tomorrow what would you do?

- What are some things you would LOVE to do? What would it take to accomplish the things on this list?

- What are your minimum long term financial goals? The idea here being that, depending on the minimal lifestyle you are comfortable with, you would need to stay at your current job (and invest wisely) for X years. It might make the current job much more enjoyable if you know that in X years you will have 100% of your time available for projects of your choice without financial consideration.

- Are there ways to satisfy what is missing AND keep the job? For example, starting something as a side project, even if you can't devote full time to it. You can always decide in the future if you need to pursue it. (ie: don't force an all or nothing decision when you don't have to)

I was working at a similar company the last two years. I was completely bored and not learning anything. Now I feel like I am learning more in a daily basis than I learned in an average month in Big Co. at a startup.

Working at the big companies is a bit like choosing a local maximum. Yeah you maxed out comp for whatever your role is in the industry. But now you flattened your growth and learning curve.

There are extreme greater heights you can reach…out there in the jungle. But that is unsafe and risky to do.

To go up, you end up having to go down, first. That means letting go of the false local Minimum you have achieved (which feels like a maximum).

That means less money in something more risky and nascent to get way more money and promotions and experience … later.

Startups are a completely different “skill tree.” I realized I would rather make less money and work harder if I was learning more and meeting a lot more people.

Easier to do when you are younger. Much, much harder to do when you are older.

You need to write a coherent plan if you are going to take a risk.

1. What is your plan A,B,C and D if A fails? Seriously. Write it down. If I quit and the startup fails or whatever, then what? Write it out.

2. You better be choosing something very high growth and exciting if you are walking away from big money. I left to join Web3 because I believe Web3 is a $100 trillion (all money on earth) market and don’t see any indication that the incentives for it to grow are going to slow down.

There are only a few markets right now that fit this bill. Climate Tech looks really good.

If you quit and join some low growth market, what’s the point. You should quit to get a very rare combination of hard to get skills.

FAANG sucks because it is a race to see who can sit there and tolerate FAANG the longest. If you are creative, you won’t last. Ideal FAANG employee is more patient.

So do you have something better to do with your time? If you are just bored, but don’t have a goal, that is insufficient.

Without saying it explicitly, you've said that your current job is pretty good. Good money, getting promoted, the company offers side opportunities for growth, etc. The only problem seems to be that your actual job responsibilities are too easy or too narrow.

If you're at an early stage in your career that might be inevitable at any large company, they tend to have a deep bench of talent and assign greater responsibility to more senior people first. A small company can be different.

Fundamentally you are not trapped by the job, you can quit it any time but you lack sufficient motivation to do so. You didn't articulate any great reasons to leave this job. They may exist but I think you need to find and clarify them. For example do you have long term goals you're very passionate about which a different job would support better?

> I have a good manager, a good comp and my job isn’t that stressful.

You have it made! Try not to let your job become your identity.

This needs to be a discussion about acceptance. Acceptance that for the first 3-5 years of your career you will likely be working on decidedly boring sh-t regardless of where you work. This isn't uncommon.

> I just get assigned straightforward work from my manager that the product managers and “leadership” assign to our team with barely any input on the overall project or ability to propose new projects.

You've just described most jobs. From your username it appears you work at Amazon AWS. Guess what, most of the hard problems have already been solved. Every job needs worker bees; was this not clear during the interview? This is giving me "new grad wants to be CEO in a day" vibes. To quote comedian Louis CK, "Yes this job sucks, that's why we gave it to you." NASA doesn't let the new grads lead the design of the next spaceship, and Apple doesn't let the entry level engineers decide what the next phone will look like.

> because I have a good manager, a good comp and my job isn’t that stressful

So you're better off than most people as it is. My advice? Find a life outside of work. The worst feeling is the one when you blink and realize you've just wasted half your life working at a unfulfilling job, but you wasted your time and opportunities around the job. Make the best of what you have.

Let me be a voice of reason from within the dark forest.

I work at a 9 (soon to be 10!) person startup. The amount of challenge is unlimited. The sense of purpose virtually unbounded. I feel like I could grab on hard to anything and take it to the moon right now.

That said, this takes energy out of you like you would not believe. I don’t have enough left over for things like games, netflix, shopping, and social events. Keeping the startup alive is 90% of my life right now. The other 10% is keeping myself alive. HN accounts for most of my free time these days.

It does feel exhilarating some days, but there are also some where you desperately crave the sort of quiet and stability you’d get at a place like Microsoft.

I’ll probably wind up marginally better off than if I had gone into FANG, but I don’t think this is a gamble worth taking if your life depends on it.

If you are bored, then it is you that is not stimulating yourself, not your job.

Any job can be fun and stimulating: ask anyone intelligent working in a monotonous job e.g. talk to smart minimum wage friends. The exception would be if your workmates are hell; that is not fun.

Make up some human challenges for yourself, while perhaps avoiding purely technical challenges (my assumption is that you are an engineer type). Try to make colleague X laugh every day, draw a cartoon for colleague Y, whatever, et cetera.

Richard Feynman played the bongos and picked locks.

Jim Keller is off-the-charts smart, yet he talks about the his joy of digging ditches, in and interview of Jim by Lex Fridman: jog to 1h16m40s in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nb2tebYAaOA

Joel Spolsky (old skool!) writes about "My first real job was in a big, industrial bakery" - about 5 paragraphs from top in https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/10/controlling-your-e...

If you are thinking you want to do a startup, the best place to find a founder(s) is in a large company. Search for other colleagues you like working with and that have integrity, and especially pay attention to others with skills you are weak at (e.g. marketing if you are a tech guy). Eventually an opportunity will open itself with a colleague.

Ask others you trust what your weaknesses are, and challenge yourself to improve on those areas.

Finally, be careful of the siren call of money. You don't want to burn through your savings (resetting to zero at 30 was rather unpleasant for me). But also don't waste your precious time only on chasing money (I have also tried that, and while it has given me a certain amount of financial freedom, the journey was mostly unsatisfying).

Disclaimer: I am middle aged, and I myself have done some of the above, and I regret not doing other of the above!

I can't give you a FAANG perspective, but I can relate to your feelings. Creativity and autonomy are extremely important...I would say some of the most important things in life. Money is important, but often in how it affords you time to be creative and autonomous.

My advice to you is to do the old regret thought experiment: consider your choices and imagine that whichever one you choose, it fails spectacularly. With that in mind (that whatever you choose will fail), which choice do you regret the least?

The only way you can really do your own work is if you build the career capital (trust etc.) that is required to do that. If you've got it already, is this worth spending it on, or would it be better to spend it by moving to a place where you can do better work?

If your management has problems, and those problems haven't changed in 2 years, do you think they're going to soon? If they weren't going to change themselves, can you realistically change them? If you can't change them, does it make sense to stay?

The only real thing that matters is impact. Make sure your tasks are aligned to that (otherwise you just hit a promo wall that you're never going to climb over). Forget about everything else. If your tasks aren't aligned to wider impact in a way that leads to personal goals, leave.

The reality is good manager or not, you'll probably get pipped if you coast, or if you push too hard against the assigned work. Especially if you don't have social acumen to match your technical skills. Your perception of loyalty to your team is likely significantly more than the reality of your manager's loyalty towards you.

Don't make the mistake of staying too long. That's career suicide (been there done that a few times). Move on before you think it's the right time. Now is when you have the leverage. Make use of it. 2 years is enough to spend at a place unless you're chasing a decent RSU grant. Tech stocks are quite a bit down compared to 2 years ago, so regardless it's probably a good time to change jobs.

You have some time. When you come into sudden wealth(which is basically the case for big tech compensation), there's a need to "grow into it" and become sufficiently noble to use the resulting freedom to good effect, vs simply inflating your lifestyle and burning out on dull work.

What you want to do before leaving is, in essence, to polish up your diamonds and figure out what kind of investments you're making, in a personal capital sense as well as a financial one. The very biggest problems in the world are not a matter of engineering wisdom, but of social coordination. They are solved not by working on that problem directly but by carefully arranging some pieces of the puzzle - knowledge, tools, collaborators - such that anyone with some brains and energy could come along and realize the last steps by making it their life for a few years.

Now, you can be that person who makes it their life - and that's the startup, essentially - but you can also engage behind the scenes seeding the ideas, connecting the talent and the investments. What any huge, successful company is, is a kind of melting pot of ideas seen but not pursued, because the original mission takes precedence, and status-seeking behavior acts to reinforce that mission. There are actually a lot of people like you who aren't getting quite what they want from the work. Find them. Find out what's hot and worth paying attention to. Keep polishing the skills where you can. There's always a next thing(at least, as long as you're able to work). You don't have to pull any triggers or go against the company's wishes, you just have to prepare.

It sounds like you're in an average FAANG team. You could try switching teams.

Here's why I think you might be in an average team:

>"I have tried over the past 2 years to propose different solutions to hard problems and I just get blown off."

A good team has tough problems, and they need clever solutions. Maybe your team's mandate isn't to solve a tough problem.

>"product managers and “leadership” assign to our team with barely any input on the overall project or ability to propose new projects."

This sounds like you might be in a workhorse/executing engineering team.

You say this:

>"I’m scared to move teams ... because I have a good manager ... and my job isn’t that stressful."

A better manager would be trying to increase the team's scope, and yours. If you're not feeling some stress, your manager isn't growing you. A better manager would create a challenging environment for you where you'd feel like your ass is getting kicked.

There are great FAANG teams, and great FAANG managers. Seek them out! (I'm at Amazon, probably the "A" that didn't make it in your acronym. But if you drop me a note I could introduce you to great managers at Amazon)

Can't believe it can be like that in Amazon. I'm just on 4th month, but want to get out of here. Making myself to wait at least 24 months. After 10+ years experience last time I wanted to get out so badly was fintech

Why waste 20 months of your life and their time?

$$$

Going by his throwaway handle(awsthrow1234), he is already at FAmazonNetflixGoogle. Think he skipped "Apple".maybe?

Just a typo, I ran out of time for a Correction Of Errors :)

I was in FAANG for 5 years and felt similarly at around the 2 year mark. Convinced myself to stay on the same team for another year since I was getting promoted consistently. 2020 helped break the monotony of work since it was in general a very bizarre experience. Transfered internally at around the 3.5 yr mark and that helped keep things fresh for another year or so, but eventually I lost the motivation and had to leave.

Other commenters here have got it right that staying on for a few years and netting a couple of promos will grant you a ton of financial freedom, and the block of FAANG experience on your resume will definitely get you in the door anywhere. I'm now at an earlier stage startup and really enjoying the work, but wouldn't change anything about my path here in retrospect.

Could you explain why your solutions are being blown off? Is it because you're at a top-down environment which doesn't listen to junior engineers as a matter of course? If that's the case, then it's an unusual situation to be in at a FAANG, and you should just move teams. Or are your solutions not appropriate for some reason, or are you not effective at championing them? No shame in this! It's where most of us begin. Selling other people on a good idea is itself a difficult skill, and a necessary one if you want to be promoted more than one more time. So: stay. And think about all the non-technical skills one must learn in any career.

I understand your feelings. I had a very interesting project at my FAANG start, it was fun, required creative and learning new things.

With time I got assigned stuff that wasn’t challenging, and that hit me hard. And also locked in legacy code or big-Corp only way of doing things.

But you have to remember that you have a very good job. Most people would like to work there someday, and it opens many doors.

It’s yours to decide, but I would bet in an internal transfer. If nothing is interesting, starting exploring other options. But big Corp is always like this. The only difference is if you are lucky with your manager and/or project

I’m in my 5th year at a FAANG. For the first 2.5 years I was stuck in a role that felt similar to what you are describing. I had a “good” manager and decent work-life balance but my ideas didn’t get much traction and the org was so big, I felt like just a cog in a wheel. So I transferred internally.

The next team was smaller and I got the opportunity to build something. What I built led to a promotion, which I then leveraged to move to another position with a bigger scope and more freedom to build and implement my ideas. This year I got to propose and start building a multi-million dollar project that will outlast my tenure at the company.

It makes a lot of professional and monetary sense to spend some time at a FAANG. One huge advantage of companies of the FAANG size is they have a massive internal job market. You get to keep vesting your stocks and banking your salary while working on different teams and on different products. Before you know it you’ll be at the end of 4 years and you’ll either be working on something cool or leveraging your experience to get more pay and work on something more interesting elsewhere.

Each group within a big company is different. See if you can find a group in your company that will be a better fit for you.

Timely: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32537042 - raise your aspirations!

(Whatever that means. Or don’t. Apply any and all advice to your situation, don’t just take the advice as stated ;)

> I have tried over the past 2 years to propose different solutions to hard problems and I just get blown off

This is the core of the problem, right? You want to work on interesting things, but you're being prohibited from it. Also it seems a bit like you're being disrespected by them if they're not taking your ideas seriously and dismissing them immediately. If you want to stay (which I think you should), you can wait until you're 40 years old and people start listening to you just because of your age, which might feel unfulfilling. Or you can hack on these ideas on your own time, release them as an open-source project, and try to get the company to use them if the project becomes popular.

First, what are the goals you mention, and if you left your job, what specifically would you do to work toward those goals? Figure that out before you do anything. You may feel creatively stifled now, but once you leave, you may find the "blank canvas problem" is even more stifling.

Finally, a provocation. Starting something new is unbelievably stressful and terrifying—and the odds are against you—but even knowing that, there are some people who can't NOT do it. They don't ask "should I go for it?" Nothing can stop them. Just my opinion, but if you have doubts, you're not ready.

Try changing teams first. You should be able to find something there that appeals to you. You cant work in a single team in one of the largest tech companies in the world and expect it’s the same way throughout the entire company.

Outside of people telling you the obvious, put your head down, keep doing it for a few years and save/invest, have you tried speaking up?

A simple, “Hey, on the next project, can I be involved in the planning? I have some ideas and would love to contribute them.” might go a long way. You say you have a good manager, what did they say? I know it seems like you aren’t getting anywhere but the reality is, you are. Time, is what you’re banking. The more you stay where you are (for a few more years at least) the better it looks on a resume. From there you’ll have all the creative freedom you can handle.

I'd like to add that many studies suggest that the fastest way to increase your income in IT is to job-hopping. E.g., my son has made 3 moves in 3 years from high-end help desk to deveops engineer, at triple his first salary. He has also very deliberately chosen jobs that would provide him with growth opportunities, because he didn't want to be siloed in any one role. None of them were with FANGs, but given all the layoffs in the news, being at a monster company does not guarantee you a job.

You should leave. These companies are built like traps and it's easy to get stuck in them.

It might be hard to see right now but there's a reason these companies get very little respect among repeat builders

It sounds like you want more influence, and sometimes developing relationships and building trust with people in your organization takes more than two years to build, especially in a larger company.

Poor child. FANG is where you go to retire. If you want to actually have an impact on architecture, go work for a startup or small company (<250 employees).

I was just looking for advice and stories from hindsight from the community.

When you can't do something, when it's a real stumper and there's no obvious solution, how does a FAANG engineer tackle the problem? Try that.

Alternately, why do you feel "blown off?" Is that common on your team, or just you? The feelings and also the behaviors leading up to them? Have you talked with your good manager about this? Or, if you manager was actually managing well, did the manager ask you?

Take small bets, explain the value you are attempting to deliver and basically learn how to sell. Especially to skip levels. Be willing to fail.

I’ve been there. The most important asset that you have in this universe is your time. Using the regret minimization framework, take the largest risk that you can possibly tolerate and make every moment meaningful. You sound young. Your risk tolerance will only go down as you age and eventually match that of the FANG. Don’t worry, the FANG will still be there and happily take you back.

I’ve been there. The most valuable asset you have in this universe is time. Using the regret minimization framework, take the largest possible risk you can tolerate while you’re still young. Your risk tolerance will only go down as you age, and at some point will match that of the FANG. Don’t worry, the FANG will still be there, and be happy to take you back.

it might just be that trading your soul for money is not a good deal

If you’re young, take all your chances in your 20s. I started my company when was 23 and it’s provided for me ever since.

I’m in my 30s now and if I had waited until I settled down and had kids I would have been very tempted to make the “safe choice” and missed out on my dream of entrepreneurship.

Atleast, until the kids were out of the house anyways.

Stay the course, and when it cycles you out, or you burn out, you have had made some good money, and then you can go to the other side and join a startup. Both are great experience.

Save up some money, then give your two weeks notice. Don't expect to recover from burnout instantly. It may take months. Consider interviewing for and taking a different job.

Work on something else on the side. Family, projects, relationships, honestly anything that gets you going. Your fang job is just one of many jobs you can have in life.

> have a good manager, a good comp and my job isn’t that stressful

Sounds like you achieved this on the first try. You think it wouldn’t happen again? Why?

Switch teams, be careful about what you choose, can be radically different

I would to feel trapped in FANG ie being able to pay my bills :)

Switch FAANGs, not all of them have the same culture.

how old are you?

that was my first question too.

Start buying small businesses

Any recommendations on how to do this?

Get in touch with the business owners (in person, public property records, etc), make your interests known, leave them your contact info in case they are looking for a buyer in the future.

In order of effectiveness:

Find someone who is doing it

Take risk and jump in unprepared

Read books like hbr buying a small business

Start your own company?

You get paid well to stfu and don't rock the boat.....

Retire early.

Can we please stop calling them FA(A)NG already?

Facebook is now Meta; Google is Alphabet; Netflix is a joke, and not really on par with others; and Microsoft is still there, big and relevant.

At least call them MAAMA, or even better AAMA (Meta is evil and nobody should want to work there).

Mark has gone batshit crazy imo.

https://nypost.com/2022/08/19/facebook-parent-meta-lays-off-...

Nobody actually talks about "Alphabet" or "Meta". They will always be Google and Facebook. The pet-names of the corporate entities are completely irrelevant.

AMAMA is better. Symmetry. If you remove meta then AAAM or MAAA are the two options in the lowest entropy macrostate.

who cares lmao. FANG was really the only acronym that people could agree on. whatever MAAMA MANGA GANMA, no one can agree on these days.

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