[ht_th]

I don't quite understand. I like challenges; I don't mind doing "FAANG Level work", whatever that means, at a small company. I don't care much for salary beyond getting a good salary for my locale. Having a great work/life balance is much more important to me. I don't want a "FAANG Level compensation" if that means I've got to move, work crazy hours, have absurd living expenses, have a lot of interview rounds with stupid coding tests, have a continuous fear of layoffs, have a lot of bureaucracy, etc.

[bambataa]

What if moving to a FAANG means you work just the same as before, except get paid twice as much and are surrounded by competent colleagues?

[zug_zug]

> FAANG means you work just the same as before, except get paid twice as much

(Ex fang) : Wish this were true. My experience is its working on a stack of entirely proprietary/2nd-rate tools with minimal documentation, weekly bugs within your core toolset, and with as much as 50% of your time being people-work.

[zeroonetwothree]

Sounds about right based on my experience too. But the pay is hard to beat. Even with the stock drops I'm still at 500k...

[CaptainNegative]

> and are surrounded by competent colleagues

Current FAANG employee here -- how I wish this were true.

[filoleg]

Not trying to attack your experiences, but have you spent much time outside of FAANG?

As someone who did both (and have been at FAANG and the likes more recently), of course you will find incompetent colleagues everywhere, FAANG or not. The difference is, how many of those relative to the competent ones you will find on average.

It is a very different situation when a team of 8 has a couple incompetent devs vs. when a team of 8 has only a couple competent devs (aka the inverse).

Not trying to say that this is universally true for both FAANG and non-FAANG, exceptions apply in both cases and are based on a chance. Of course there are startups and non-tech companies that are composed almost entirely of very strong and competent devs. And there are some teams at FAANGs that are in "rest and vest" mode. But on average, that observation about the averages seemed to be true based on my personal experiences.

[bambataa]

I’m sure it’s variable but mine are great.

[taylodl]

I know far too many people working in FAANG to know that what you say isn't true. And double the salary means nothing when you're living in an area who's real estate is 4x more expensive than where you are currently. As far as working with competent colleagues - I have a secret for you: they're not all working at FAANG companies nor do they desire to.

[CalRobert]

If you have FAANG level comp, you can structure your life so you are not afraid of layoffs. I don't even have that level of comp but all the same I was a little disappointed I didn't get laid off from my last job because a severance package would've been nice.