SquishyQuokka
SquishyQuokka

Is the FAANG hype dead? 💀

Had a call with my cousin this weekend. Life has been very hectic lately so, I have been laying low for a while now. Anyway, my cousin reached out and he brought up something very interesting. He mentioned how the quality of new engineering grads at FAANG has been trending downwards over the last three or so years.

Technical competency aside, there is a weird behavioural shift wherein freshers have adopted job hopping every 2-3 years. He told me that there are zero engineers who stayed longer than 3 years at his org.

I mean optimizing for pay is fine. The thing to really balance for is impact in the long run because at one point you would find it hard to scale beyond a Lead/EM role at an org.

But the real thing is that the "FAANG" hype has started to die down amongst the 99th percentile of talent. I wonder how long will it take to have a trickle down effect to 80th percentile and so on.

Just to validate, I asked a friend for his opinion and he opined that "Bhai, tum FAANG mei naaukar ho ya kisi startup mei, ho toh naukar hi." Translation: "You can work at FAANG, or at a startup but you are still a servant(employee)"

Is the FAANG hype really dead?

11mo ago
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WobblyNoodle
WobblyNoodle
InMobi11mo

Was there any faang hype among 99th percentile folks in the first place?? I graduated from a tier-1 college, majority of my friends are from Similar colleges and if I look in my friend circle, most of the folks are working at high growth startups or something of their own.
Sorry to say but faang was never aspirational to begin with.
The target audience of youtuber bhaiya/didis were tier-2/3 folks and maybe this kind of hype exists among them.

SquishyQuokka
SquishyQuokka
Gojek11mo

@Kafkaa I would disagree. Go to any tier-1 college and even the brightest of the lot in non-CSE streams are doing competitive programming/GSoC et cetera for FAANG pay.

PrancingNugget
PrancingNugget

The FAANG hype was largely fueled by their high salaries at a time when there were limited options in the Indian corporate sector for employees. FAANG companies were paying 3 or 4 times more than most Indian service-based companies. However, now we have more options, with companies and startups in India offering comparable or higher compensation than these industry giants. Consequently, people are now considering other factors such as work-life balance and clients. Kyuki paisa to koi bhi de dega.

SquishyQuokka
SquishyQuokka
Gojek11mo

@President_Trump Inclined to agree. The funding landscape has created bigger companies that have a higher base pay.

FluffyCupcake
FluffyCupcake
Amazon11mo

Will you pick FAANG or non-FAANG if latter pays you more? Considering everything else remains more or less the same.

SquishyQuokka
SquishyQuokka
Gojek11mo

@ElonMast I'm not in that game anymore. Skin in the Game and Impact is more important to me now. Been there done that playing the money game.

FluffyCupcake
FluffyCupcake
Amazon11mo

Ok, so let me answer for the crowd who might look at money. As more n more VC money is flowing, many startups are giving u good numbers and hence people are not hesitating to jump out of FAANG boat. At the same time, FAANG has highest number of employees within Indian borders and abroad.

People still aspire and work hard for FAANG roles.

SillyDonut
SillyDonut
TCS11mo

Naukari has the prefix as Naukar, says a lot. ( Resonates with 2nd last para 💯)

On bright side, with onset of AI and fast paced technological change...there is nothing wrong in changing firms. Nobody will be working till 60 like our last gen.

One should optimise and get reliable portfolio till 40(for few 30 also, who start at 21 but invest heavily for 9y) , means don't retire but u can take voluntary retirement or sabbatical and chill without worrying about next emi.

FaangM laid off people recently and they ain't saint. Witch or FaangM they are just salesman which rent out ur cognitive ability n considerable time just to sell to a 3rd party or create a product respectively.

Just to conclude, never love ur job or firm, but love yourself 😉💟😉

SquishyQuokka
SquishyQuokka
Gojek11mo

@Sherlock007 Bingo! This is oh so true. Unless you fall in love with a mission and have significant skin in the game it is pointless to burn yourself out for a job.

DerpyKoala
DerpyKoala
TCS11mo

Aren't FAANG paying less to the new employees?

SquishyQuokka
SquishyQuokka
Gojek11mo

Relatively but not as less as the rest.

JazzyBagel
JazzyBagel

No Best way to earn huge in smallest amount of time. And money is the biggest motivator. So they will keep shining. Small blips in reputation here and there is expected.

SquishyQuokka
SquishyQuokka
Gojek11mo

meh answer.

WigglyPenguin
WigglyPenguin

To an extent Yes, every software engineer I know only want to get the name of a FAANG company on their resume regardless of the time they spent their.

The goal is to work there and prove everyone that they are a FAANG level engineer.

FAANG like any other MNC have a lot of teams hence, it is less likely you will be working on very innovative or cool project. And when it comes to compensation many startups are paying around the same salary + less bureaucracy and more impact.

SqueakyQuokka
SqueakyQuokka

Faang still pay the highest per unit time.

ZippyLlama
ZippyLlama

Yep, that ship has sailed. People shouldn't tie themselves too closely to these corporations. Just be you. You could be in and out of a job in a heartbeat, but you'll always have the power to make your own choices in life, and that's something nobody can take away from you.

CosmicQuokka
CosmicQuokka

faang hype not dead in colleges like SRM, Amity, Manipal. kids still aspire for that tag.

The problem with other "highpay" startups is that it's equivalent to "finding jackpot" to get noticed/ interview chance for this segment kids, while the likes of Amazon still sends the test link to most applicants and on clearing get the interview chance.

My smaller brother is in final year, anecdotes from him and juniors,

from my college last year total 11 kids got full time high pay job only in "faang", non of rubrik, cred, coinbase, rippling etc etc.

Regardless of the elitist bashing these large established companies are doing "fair" treatment, albeit it may be poor work for top 1%tile, but isn't that the case elsewhere??

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