Comment by PheonixPharts | Hacker News Reader

Comment by PheonixPharts | Hacker News Reader

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FAANG reputations are no longer evenly distributed.

Even though most people's opinions of the company have changed, Google engineers are still widely considered to be high quality. Apple engineers also have a great reputation but it's very rare to see them on the market. Facebook/meta engineers tend to be above average but have a reputation for being aggressive corporate ladder climbers.

But if I hazard a guess, if you're struggling to find work, you're at Amazon. Amazon's aggressive hire->pip pipeline has, at least in my experience, destroyed their reputation. I've worked with plenty of ex-Amazon engineers in the past few years and they were all notably below average in skill. This is not to say that you are (if you even work for Amazon), but Amazon is no longer the resume bump it once was, if anything quite the opposite.

Talking about "FAANG" is not really relevant anymore since there is a pretty big range of expectation for engineers coming out of each of those letters in the acronym. Additionally none of those companies command quite the attention they did a few years ago, as they've all shifted from demanding engineering skill to demanding the ability to survive in a large mega-corp.

As someone who has sometimes hired people from FAANG into startups I've worked in, I'd say it's 50/50 if the person will actually be a net positive to the organization. A lot of times the people coming from FAANG seem to be under the impression that what their previous company was doing is 100% the best, in all cases, and they try to cargo-cult their previous culture into the new company.

Sometimes they're able to adapt though and have a really positive impact overall. But the sour experiences really woke me up regarding seeing it as a mostly positive signal that someone worked at FAANG. So I wouldn't see FAANG as a guarantee about anything, no matter which company was their previous one.

The culture around FAANGs has always been a bit strange. People associate making a lot of money with being good at building tech at both a personal and a company level and unfortunately that isn't necessarily valid in either case.

New hires who have been living inside the Big Tech bubble for a while can come with issues that others here have already described. Consequently startups should probably downlevel many people coming from FAANG roles for exactly the same reason that FAANGs downlevel many people who haven't been worshipping at the altar of scalability in their previous roles. The skills and methods are different and some of them aren't very transferrable.

Of course that's not to say good people who have been working at large scales can't or won't adapt. But on day one nobody cares that you've been a Staff/Principal leading projects with 25 developers and a mature development environment if you're joining a startup that needs to raise a Series A before the end of its runway this summer. The abilities you need in that environment are things like identifying the most essential supporting work that can't wait while still spending most of your time on getting the main job done and hitting the deadline. If you can't roll up your sleeves and get the job done then you don't need to worry about a PIP. There are only 10 of you anyway and you're all out of a job in six months if any of you doesn't pull their weight.

It would be absurd to downlevel these folks. Probably the mismatch is an investment and both org and employee will need adjustments that are mutually beneficial.

It would be absurd to downlevel these folks.

In which direction? Both make sense to me. A good employee might adapt to their new environment quickly and in that case obviously they should then be levelled up appropriately. But there is nothing about being Staff/Principal at a BigCo that says you're going to be anything special as a senior in a startup - in fact the opposite can be the case for reasons others have mentioned - and there is nothing about being an excellent contributor at a startup that says you're going to navigate the scale and the politics of a BigCo effectively. It seems reasonable to start a new hire at a level where you would expect they do have the required skills (including soft skills) and then look to make more effective use of them if and when they've settled into the new environment.

I'm not sure what part of my comment made you think that my current employer is an obstacle in job hunting. Actually it's quite the opposite, as I mention I get a lot of attention from recruiters even though I'm not actively looking. The issue I'm observing is that this attention doesn't clearly translate to more job opportunities.

If my current employer was the problem, wouldn't recruiters and hiring managers not bother reaching out, or reject my applications (I haven't applied to any job directly recently so I can't say).

I'm speaking to your point about:

> Common wisdom might make you think that I should be having companies throwing wads of cash at me

My point is just that you're misunderstanding "common wisdom". In 2016, yes a job at any FAANG would mean that you have no trouble getting a new gig. In 2024 Amazon employees do not have a great reputation, so there's no reason to think of yourself as part of a group that "common wisdom" would show preference towards. Nobody with "wads of cash" sees Amazon on a resume and thinks it's something special and worth reaching out for. FAANG in general is not as appealing as it once was, and Amazon in particular is not a strong signal at all. Someone working at OpenAI today would likely have the response you're imagining is reserved for FAANG.

Recruiters are also playing a numbers game, especially in this tech job market. My inbox has ample recruiter message for roles that are not even relevant to my skills, I wouldn't mistake that for signal.

Amazon, like any other big company, is a 1000 different small companies in a trenchcoat.

Same for the other FAANGs. Each has just as least as many meh engineers as it has great ones.

I think they were saying that because they're an experienced ML engineer more than because of what companies they've worked at.

I kinda agree that Amazon is no longer a resume bump. But otoh, if a company holds a lower expectation on an ex-Amazon candidate (compared with average - "quite the opposite" as you said) just because the pip thing exists, I'd say that's very short-sighted and irrational, and would probably think again if I really want to work for them. Similarly, if they automatically think that an ex-Googler is worth hiring without proper evaluation.

"Reputations" of companies you worked for should have the absolute minimum influence on any hiring decisions. Don't blame others if you don't have a proper hiring process that works for you.

Yup, this is true. At my workplace, during the hiring frenzy of 2020-22, we had an unwritten moratorium on Amazon. SDEs were interviewed only if we didn't have anyone left. SDMs, only if it was an internal referral that personally vouched for them.

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