[jsiepkes]

While the top 20% at FANG's probably do interesting stuff I think most of the people there don't do terribly interesting stuff. If you have to game the hiring process I don't think you'll expect to be in that 20% with the interesting work?

So what is it with people wanting to work so badly for large / FANG companies? The money and perks?

[jlokier]

The author is quite explicit in their post:

"A natural question here is why only publicly trading companies? First, I had already tried working for small and medium-sized businesses, wanted to try what it feels like to work for a proper corporation at a proper corporation-sized scale

"Second, I figured that a FAANG entry on my resume would act as a quality stamp, opening many doors in the future.

"Third, I hoped that a rigorous hiring procedure would help to concentrate true talent inside of the company. When you are surrounded by people willing to methodically take a VM apart piece by piece just to figure out why one operation works 5% faster than the other one, it, kind of, becomes a new norm for you, don't you think?

"At least, it is a heck of a story to tell at a conference.

"Forth, I figured that larger companies would be less afraid to relocate candidates.

"Last, my wife is about to start her Master's, and FAANG pays pretty darn well."

[Jenk]

I think I must be of some kind of previous generation where I still think of Google et al as the anti-corporation. My time at "Corporate™" companies involved neck ties, shirts, shoes I had to polish, and trousers with creases ironed into them.

There were densely packed cubicles, the walls of which dotted with calendars, SLAs, corporate branded motivational posters, and poorly taken baby photos used as a reminder of why you continued to turn up to this droll.

Endless .. and I really mean endless .. middle management beuracracy meetings, interspersed with yuppy salesman/managers (hard to tell the difference) comparing their weekend adventures at the golf course, referring to you for pointed but logically flawed questions about the possibilities of technology, gasping at your lack of enthusiasm to work the weekend.

Canteen food that wasn't fit for prison, but still cost you twice as much as home made.

Filing form after form. Sometimes a form to request a form (no really, this happened.)

Then came this hip new company that had pool tables in the office, open spaces and plants to help relax the employees - how on earth would they ever get anything done these yuppies scoffed inbetween sharing pictures of their latest company car amongst one another.

Wait.. they let their engineers lead projects? What do the project managers do, then? THEY DON'T HAVE ANY?!!

(I'd like to add I'm really not making any of this up. My years at EDS, Xerox, several large UK banks, and some would-be-giant-corporation companies was just like what you saw in Office Space.)

[rexreed]

These are all the very same reasons why MBAs and B-school grads work for the "Big 4" Consultancies (Deloitte, EY, KPMG, Accenture). They work there a few years for "Resume fodder", all the while being ground down with 80+ work week hours, not working on anything particularly enjoyable, and learning primarily how the Big 4 Work and not really how the industry works.

There are other comparisons between the inner workings of the FAANG and Big 4, but I'll leave that for those in FAANG to make the comparisons.

[pizza234]

Focusing on the technical side (ie. ignoring salary etc.), there are a couple of significant aspects I find attractive:

- working on high scale projects

- working with highly skilled peers

They're relatively unique, in the sense that they can be found in other companies for sure; but at FAANG they're pretty much guaranteed.

Working on an uninteresting task at high scale is, I think, an experience worth having, profession-wise.

[faraaz98]

They seem to believe they would be doing interesting work and yeah money and perks.

And working in faang has also become something of a status symbol, maybe that's what comes with money and perks

[R0b0t1]

It's a lot of money. A lot of it, and usually great benefits and a flexible schedule. You also typically get to live in a very desirable place.

[nivenkos]

But in Europe they barely pay more than a lot of medium-sized companies.

[rockbruno]

The perks and benefits are usually considerably better, which IMO is a much bigger factor than the base salary.

[xen0]

That is not my experience in Germany. Maybe for base salaries; but not for total compensation.

[ju-st]

at levels.fyi Amazon Germany starts at 66.000€ total. L4 at 87000€ with 2/3years of experience. Imagine sending out 400 resumes, spending months on leetcode, multiple days for interviews and then getting an offer for 66.000€. Edit: it's probably still worth it for getting the compoany name in your resume.

[bellyfullofbac]

The author lives in Nowhere, Russia; the chance to move to Europe is probably added attractiveness, once he's there it's easier to move jobs.

[xen0]

Sure, for a graduate position, targeting someone out of Uni; there are not many of those in Germany for €66k outside of FAANG (although I'm sure they exist). And that is unlikely to be what the OP was offered from Amazon (they said "mid-level"; probably SDE-II).

And for what it's worth; my search led to an average of €76k ($90k) for SDE-I in Germany: https://www.levels.fyi/company/Amazon/salaries/Software-Engi...

[cvak]

Have you recently checked fb/google europe TCs? for L5 it's 250k£+

[nivenkos]

IIRC L5 in those companies is equivalent to L7 in Amazon though no? Like Staff Engineer basically.

[dom96]

Which medium sized companies? I haven’t seen any that get even close.

[nivenkos]

Schibsted, TypeForm, I'm sure there are many others too.