[ed25519FUUU]

Apple is a weird outlier here. Do people consider working at Apple the same as working at a FANG? From my experience and talking with people in the field, it's not really the same league, neither in work-life balance, pay, benefits, etc.

[throwaway45349]

The term "FAANG" is about prestige (originally stock growth) more than actual quality of life.

[xenihn]

how is it an outlier? it is absolutely competitive when it comes to pay. benefits and WLB are comparable to Amazon, e.g. no free food (except for the infamous amazon bananas).

you could make the argument that neither of them belong on the list, but I would disagree with that too

i would look at these things when deciding which companies should be on the list:

is TC for the position (on average) in the top 5%?

is the company considered to be a potential terminal/apex in one's tech career? as in you could work there until retirement (potentially an early one if you are making enough money)

for the employees who don't stay forever, do they typically go between other employers in the set when switching jobs? (google <-> fb is the main example i think about for this)

i want to include perceived prestige on this list too, but that seems way too difficult and subjective when it comes to quantifying it. one measurement would be how appealing your experience at a member of the set would make you to the rest of the industry as a candidate.

[jrockway]

I think Apple is included because the pay/benefits are similar.

[cpufry]

wait why is it different in work-life balance

[ptmcc]

Apple's reputation is for relatively poor work-life balance, plus living under a heavy shroud of secrecy even internally is tiring.

But like any huge company, "it depends".

[the_only_law]

It’s a shame because Apple has some of the more interesting faang jobs I’ve seen (personal opinion ofc) but I just continuously see negative things about it from relatively poor pay, to forcing people to give up their side projects to requiring cult like obsession with the company.