[ummonk]

Or it means the process is well defined enough that you can create a level field by telling everyone how it works through guides like this instead of giving connected people a leg up due to inside knowledge of a poorly defined process.

[doctorpangloss]

I can guarantee you that more than 90% of people working in highly compensated positions at the world's most famous corporations have had a lot of "leg up" benefits in their lives.

[ummonk]

Leg ups that have helped them become better at software engineering? Sure. Leg ups in the form of insider connections / elites? Less so, particularly for talent they're hiring today.

This is a significantly more meritocratic industry than most, and within the industry, the FANGs are relatively more meritocratic than smaller startups.

[Techonomicon]

Meritocratic in the most boring uninteresting sense of the term where you literally only work on things in a way which Google tells you will help advance you up their ladders while not actually working on anything in a way you would find interesting in general.

[YjSe2GMQ]

Yup. It's in th same spirit as SATs - people also practice for that.