[yCombLinks]

They want it on their resume primarily to make more money and have a better career in terms of getting hired, etc. Very different motivation. They'd only work at a FAANG for free long enough to get that bump. Game devs however would work for many years underpaid because they like what they're creating.

[deanCommie]

You're not wrong, but it's also so sad.

FAANG used to be the _dream_. Change the world. Work on groundbreaking tech. Solve harder problems than anywhere else. Get Paid incredibly well.

Then I guess a generation focused exclusively on that last part flooded the zone. I still believe that The Great Resignation of 2021 did more harm to our industry than COVID or any interest rate or VC changes.

It polluted the brains of most of the people in our industry from a missionary mindset to a mercenary, and it decimated big company's established cultural memory all to prop up a bunch of unicorns who will probably all slowly die over the next decade.

So now half of the people can't get a job, and the half that can are miserable. This was true BEFORE AI.

[smsm42]

It's just a natural progression. When the company is a startup working on a new exciting tech it's chasing the dream and changing the world. When it's a behemoth employing 200k people, it's impossible for all of them to be chasing the dream. Probably like 90% of them would be doing extremely boring "keeping the lights on" tasks and ensuring this gargantuan machine does not go to pieces under it's own weight. It still can pay incredibly well, but it won't be exciting frontier work anymore. It just can't be, 200k people company can't move with the agility of 200 people company.

[wahnfrieden]

Interesting choice to blame FAANG demise on its workers

[nixon_why69]

Its not like the CEOs unilaterally said "we want to suck now". It's the cumulative effect of many people optimizing for the promotion process within the company and then coaching their mentees to do the same.

[keybored]

Are not the CEOs responsible for cumulative/emergent effects?

[nixon_why69]

They should be but its very hard. It's a culture and you can't exactly order a chain of command that grew into it and hold all the levers to just he different.

I'm not lionizing Sundar Pichai here, just saying the cumulative attitudes of 10k L7/L8 is really what sets the culture.

[zem]

I was going to post a more extended rant but really yeah, this says it all

[agentgt]

~~Perhaps now especially since these companies are predominately hiring oversees contractors but circa 2009-2015 when I was around entrepreneurs and startups this was discussed.~~

~~Ultimately the goal is the same: make more money. So I disagree the motivation is "very different" its just a lot harder now to do a startup.~~

You kept editing your comment so disregard the above. I misread it the first time and then it changed. I left my response thats makes no sense now.

[yCombLinks]

Sorry, I didn't make the point I was aiming for initially

[agentgt]

Your new point is excellent btw. I should have considered that.

I also hope it doesn't sound like I don't care for these developers who are being taken advantage of. They should be compensated fairly for their work.

EDIT I should add why I think it is a great point especially since I make recruiting software. The greatest increases in salary for most people is done by switching companies or jobs. If you don't want to leave the company because you really like what you do it would skew it so that salaries are lower.

[tcfhgj]

sounds very much like open source maintainers too