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You do live in a different, underprivileged world. Many Google engineers have never not heard back from a job app.

I will never understand people who refuse to work at a big company yet complain about money of all things. For reference my last job at Google paid $450k+. It seems like it would behoove you to enter the other world.

If you want a serious answer:

Most software engineers are not status-seekers, and are not driven by prestige or a big paycheck.

Big tech companies attract the same type of software developers that investment banks do to finance majors, or MBB management consulting firms do to business majors.

Of course, I'm not saying that those are the people that FAANG-companies get exclusively, far from, but you have to...immerse yourself, and drink some kool aid, before you enter that rat race.

Most people will look at leetcode marathons, infinite interview rounds, relocation, etc. and think "absolutely not".

Of course some people are just really sharp, and can almost stumble into these jobs, but most will have to put some real effort into it, and jump through the flaming hoops.

> are not driven by prestige or a big paycheck.

I'm not sure I agree with this one, I think a lot of people are drawn to software because of the money in the same way people are drawn to being a doctor or lawyer - the job itself overlaps with their innate skills and interests __enough__, and there's the promise of good pay on top of that. I think a lot of software engineers would be in other fields if it paid badly.

And half of that is taxed. The rest is spent on over-priced housing. And now you have no time/energy left to build anything of value. Congratulations.

Yeah unless you legitimately enjoy it, want the experience, or want to save up some money for a while - I don’t think it’s worth it (coming from someone that spent 10+ yrs at FAANG).

It’s certainly not apples to apples with any other random tech job to where you can just compare TC while ignoring level of stress. And the money is good but not life changing good.

Half of a big number is still a big number :). FAANG money can be life changing - retire 10-15 years "early" life changing.

I've been at three FAANGs now and my experience has been that nobody really cares about your level for day-to-day work. The only times it has ever come up for me is when a) I was part of assembling a new team and we needed a mix of juniors and seniors or b) when some dangerous action like deploying during a holiday code freeze needed approval from an L9+ by policy, so you had to go find that person and justify it to them.

Now, your compensation is based entirely on your level, which obviously makes it matter a great deal, but my experience hasn't been that there are mind games around it.

Why did you bounce around faangs if you don’t mind me asking? Reading this site it seems… not uncommon, but I don’t understand why. Finding and starting a new job stinks haha.

I bounced from Amazon to Microsoft to Amazon to Microsoft to Facebook. Why? Because the grass is always greener on the other side. Amazon didn't pay enough, Microsoft was too boring, Amazon was too chaotic, and then Facebook paid much more. All bad decisions, but I only know that in hindsight. I'm not very smart.

Oh gosh, I didn’t mean to imply it was poor decision making, I was just curious. You’re a better person than me for putting up with the interview process. I absolutely refuse to grind leetcode problems. My TC at the moment is probably a lot less than what you’ve made though. Always tradeoffs.

No worries, I didn't sense any criticism. I've just become more critical of my own decisions, now that I have some perspective and it seems to me that most of what I did was poorly considered.

Getting through the interview process used to be so easy back then. I probably applied to 2-3 jobs to get an offer. That has changed drastically since 2023.

Do you wish you’d have gained tenure at one company longer?

I did stay at Microsoft for a total of 15 years, but in retrospect it's the least interesting place to work. 5% coding, 95% overhead.

Of the places I've worked, none of them had anything where I can now say "I should have stayed there for longer." Amazon and Meta have obnoxious aggressive culture. Microsoft is a place where you can chill out and collect a paycheck and good health insurance. But very boring.

I also worked at some much smaller companies, but not for long. Maybe those are more interesting, but also less stable.

>Am I that much of an outlier that I need to get with the program?

No! You’re right where you need to be (just not where you want). Many of us have had a ridiculously difficult year.

You’re not alone.

> this job search is the hardest I have faced in over 30 years. Just talking to a human is almost impossible.

My advice: Don't apply on platforms that are filled with spam. I think the best choice I've made for work is posting on Hacker News that I'm looking for work rather than bothering with job sites like LinkedIn. Both times I've done this, this last time even after being laid off, I had a new position within the month. I've never even gotten replies on any other platform: not on LinkedIn, not on Indeed, not on Upwork... but commenting on Hacker News has gotten me a job in relatively short order, every time.

My personal hypothesis is that employers look here to find interesting people... or at least that's how I'd go about it. Both companies I've joined from HN have been filled with obviously autistic people.

Reality is that different resources have different impacts on an eng. org. Some individuals are eng. orgs onto themselves and can own a whole stack (breadth). Some are very specialized in areas that require deep expertise or experience (depth). Some are good engineers, but lack both breadth and depth of knowledge. Leveling let's you delineate comp bands accordingly.

The levels are a real thing, but "navigating the NDA minefield" is not, it's just something Googler's say to make themselves feel more special

I had never heard that expression until I read this article today, and I spent a very big chunk of my career at FAANGs. I think he just invented it. NDAs were never a problem for me when switching jobs either.

The article was interesting and much of it rang true, but not this detail.

Author here. I do feel incredibly luck in my position. This is a very specific perspective that I have, and I'm sorry that I may have seemed too entitled in this post. My whole goal was to point out to value yourself and don't let the company define you.

Leveling: it is kinda dystopian, but it's easier to define a ladder because it is something someone can work towards (like a skill tree). There are pros and cons, easily definable but dehumanizing. But it's something common in a lot of mid to large size tech companies.

I did leave this year, and that was after two and a half years of trying. It's a lot of trail and error. I did 7 in person interviews. Each session was 2-4 interviews each. And other than the first 3, I felt really confident in each one. But none but the last one I actually got a callback from. And countless other interviews before that that were online or not in-person. It's rough out there.

And NDA at YouTube is something that I was just super careful of. Google lawyers were something I didn't want to deal with later on and I heard some horror stories from other people that left before.

It may not be what is mainstream but this is what happened to me and I thought it might be informational and helpful for people who feel stuck or not as valued. I hope people feel valued at work, at the least.

I hope your search gets better this year! And merry Christmas!

> I have never worked anywhere with the L4/L5/whatever crap. No one I have worked with has either. It sounds downright dystopian that people are reduced to a basically a number (if you leave out the L).

This inevitably happens in any large organization. People just have positions like "Department Head" or "Chief Something-Something" instead of numbers.

If anything, engineering/research organizations are unusual because in "traditional" organizations your growth is basically linked to the number of people you direct. In technical orgs, you can be an individual contributor and be at a higher level than many managers.

At Amazon, level is public. Microsoft, only the title (Senior etc) is visible not the precise level is visible is my impression. At Google, it can be public but apparently can also be hidden. At Facebook it's always hidden.

I'm interviewing engineers right now, it is tough to judge what their current level mapping is especially if they come from Facebook. You can guesstimate from their resume accomplishments and tenure but the rest is just interview performance or asking directly - there are staff engineers that get there from 3 years out of college and there are seniors that are at that level for a decade.