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?

10mo ago
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WobblyNoodle
WobblyNoodle
InMobi10mo

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
Gojek10mo

@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
Gojek10mo

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

FluffyCupcake
FluffyCupcake
Amazon10mo

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

SquishyQuokka
SquishyQuokka
Gojek10mo

@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
Amazon10mo

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
TCS10mo

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
Gojek10mo

@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
TCS10mo

Aren't FAANG paying less to the new employees?

SquishyQuokka
SquishyQuokka
Gojek10mo

Relatively but not as less as the rest.

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