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Exactly this. I now work in a team with a bunch of Ivy League UK equivalents (Oxford/Cambridge), but I'm about 5 years older working at a similar grade/comp ratio. I had to hop around 4 different teams at 2 companies, and build a pretty extensive portfolio of work, before I got a foot in the door they did straight out of university.

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After graduating from a bog standard state school, it took me 20 years of job hopping from one non-name-brand company to another before I finally got into a FAANG company. And once you're inside, you can see why this is: You're surrounded by a monoculture of Stanford and MIT and Berkeley graduates, because those (and a few others) are where they do all their university recruitment. Not to pick on graduates of those great schools in particular. They're generally very smart and capable folks! It's just that big tech seems to focus on a small number of schools and practically ignore all the other ones.

I also came in through the side door, and also saw this happening.

I have a similar story but replace "FAANG" with "hedge funds".

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