[cmrdporcupine]

It's always been the case that FAANG or whatever are not always the "best" home for the "best" engineers. Many do not/did not feel comfortable there, especially as they became more and more corporate and slow.

But unfortunately the answer now is that "best engineers" can't work there either because the layoff / employment-squeeze is in full swing.

You're right that the equity packages offered by startups to engineers are generally insulting. Every time this has come up in negotiation in the last few positions I've interviewed for the founders won't even tell you what % of shares they're offering, nor any sense of what the real value is, just pretend nonsense.

[adw]

In my experience startups have as much bullshit as FAANG companies, it’s just different bullshit.

[cmrdporcupine]

Absolutely, I agree. A few years ago I walked away from 10 years at Google hoping to rekindle some excitement in exchange for losing out on money. I hated the way things ran at Google and only lasted there so long because of the money.

So far I've mostly found different (often worse) kinds of dysfunction and not really much better velocity.

There are broader dysfunctions in our industry.

[datavirtue]

Everyone struggles to keep top talent engaged anyway. You can't move fast enough and don't have any problems that need fixing (other than the crippling tech debt you managed to accumulate already).

[mmmmmbop]

In hindsight, would you have stayed at Google?

[cmrdporcupine]

Probably. I was going crazy working there, I grew to really dislike it. But from a purely selfish $$ POV, it's likely I would have got caught in one of the rounds of layoffs or been able to take this latest voluntary layoff package.

Unless the frustration led to bad performance reviews, which could have happened.

My mental health would have suffered, but holding on another 1-3 years would have probably led to me being 5 years closer to early retirement.

It was also 2021/2022, when the job market was completely bananas. The temptation to leave and get a decent paying remote job was very high. And at the time I felt Google was doing a very poor job of remote work, at least on the teams I was on. And they made the hybrid in-office unpleasant (floating desks, nobody else there, just a weird vibe).

Hindsight 20/20, etc.

[kridsdale3]

My story is the same as yours, and the same timing, but it was Meta. I missed out on a LOT (!!!!) of money by quitting, but I don't regret it at all. The place was rotten.

I'm actually now at Google and things are just fine and peachy.

[mathiaspoint]

Large corporations are probably the worst place actually. You get slotted into some random project treadmill (which will be completely different from whatever position you interviewed for) where most of the decisions are made by middle managers at least one or two levels above you. Going out of your way to solve problems will be ignored at best and my even result in a reprehend.

These places are for people who hate thinking but are good at pretending otherwise.

[kridsdale3]

Top Talent won't be leveled such that PMs can be 1 or 2 levels above. They'll be high enough that the project plan heavily consults them from inception.