[enra]

The downside of this advice is while you make money and your experience will look good on the resume, you might not have learned that much in the end and in some ways wasted your time and life.

Also if you want to go back to earlier stage companies or different places than FAANG, the FAANG experience is not some golden ticket, but can be also a potential flag to those who know how things work. Basically a flag to verify can this person still build things outside of bigco or are they just a professional coaster at this point. It can be surprising to people that even though you did work at Facebook or Google, you are not automatically a good fit for some other company.

My personal way of thinking has been always to join companies or pick jobs where I learn and that pushes me in some way, especially while I'm still young. I also did work at FAANG but the main thing I learned was how manage politics. Also within FAANG there is always teams or roles where you are actually challenged but majority of the roles are fairly easy.

Ideally at each role you learn something that improves and expands your skills. Each role prepares you for your next role or the step you want to take in your career. Taking home a paycheck and being a professional coaster doesn't help you make progress or make your life interesting (not to say that work is all your life but it is part of it).

[2snakes]

The synthesis is to professionally coast at work, but have another type of work like your hobbies or learnings outside. Sometimes they are the same too.

[paulcole]

We’ve all wasted our time and our lives in some way. May as well have an ungodly amount of money after a few years.