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Comment by PartiallyTyped | Hacker News Reader

I made well over 100 applications last April - May; as a grad student close to their master's at a top EU University. I had more success from FAANG companies than startups. I eventually landed a very low paying job at a fintech startup but they had financial issues. Come mid july I found myself interviewing for a FAANG company, and today I passed probation period.

The fact that I was good enough for a FAANG company, but unhirable to almost everyone else is a bit beyond me.

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FAANG have the resources to train juniors, startups like juniors a lot but usually don't have the resources to absorb employees who need hand holding.

I understand that, but even here I am not given any handholding, we discuss what needs to be done, if needed I write technical document, get feedback, and then implement.

It's possible that your work environment is set up to provide the necessary guidance even though it doesn't feel like handholding to you. At smaller companies you might just get a vague description of a task and be left on your own for weeks to figure it out.

That's very likely, ask and ye shall receive is very common here, and the company gives the resources to anyone and everyone to learn.

From my POV, this is like university, but easier, and I get paid.

I've seen it said on HN say FAANG hiring is as much to keep other people from hiring you/to stop you from creating startups, as it is to have you do a work for them

The scale of hiring at FAANG companies is on another level. Google's summer intern class is probably much larger than the number of FTEs at my current job. They need to contact tens or hundreds of thousands of prospective candidates. I'm not shocked some people have an easier time getting interviews from FAANG companies.

FAANG care about education credentials, startups care about pragmatism and getting things done.

How do you evaluate that the person can't get things done without even interviewing them? I had 3 internships, and built all sorts of systems.

Only a single startup gave me the chance to prove that I can get things done.

FAANG on the other hand seems to care about getting things done, or as we say, having a bias for action.

Maybe some of them do, but Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Amazon didn't care about my education, which is good because I don't have a degree.

Where did you look for jobs in the EU - as in which message boards/websites etc...?

LinkedIn and company websites mostly.

I see. And how did you find the company websites? The reason I ask is could the type of companies in your filter be the ones just not doing quality work? And interestingly my acquaintance is having the opposite problem where they are willing to train but are having to work very hard to find good CS grads in the EU.

I was looking mostly for companies in Scandinavia, NL and Germany through LinkedIn, or just big names. Some companies had easy apply, others sent you to their website.

I have been told by people in r/cscareerquestionsEU that I may be too expensive due to master's but the "absence" of experience to make me unemployable.

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