If you get a job at FAANG, you are pretty much guaranteed to be employed for the rest of your life due to the weight the names of FAANG carry.
Sure, other companies might offer similar challenges but if you've only worked at a random company X, it doesn't give you an advantage in future job interviews. Name recognition is more important than some realize.
It used to be like that, but these days I often encounter the opposite, with ex-FAANG people having stigma attached to them, though arguably mostly google. FB is I think second in that.
Outside (even more outside USA), and also in terms of workplace environment "feeling" and choice of projects, things get a bit different.
Is there still clout? Yes, definitely. But it stopped being automatic badge of merit, at least according to friends who either work(ed) in FAANG companies, or were on the other side of recruitment involved.
As someone who worked at a FAANG and still struggled to find my next job, I can tell you that this is absolutely not necessarily true. It may moderately increase the number of recruiters that spam you, but in my experience, it did not otherwise make it any easier to find a different job. You're going to still have the 100:10:1 ratio. You're still going to get whiteboard-hazed. You make it sound almost as though you can just waltz through the door at most companies, simply for having worked at one of these FAANG companies in the past.
Yeah, pretty much this. I can't stress enough the difference living in a hot area for tech, having a famous school or some big names in your resume makes in attracting recruiters from top companies vs working for some random mom and pop shops in a unknown city.
