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0 pointsjazzpush22d ago0 comments

I've worked at FAANG, yes, as well as one of the top two frontier AI labs, quant, and now, in a similar role doing very technical research.

Do you not think it's considered "elite" to e.g. work at such companies in highly technical roles in the same way that a PhD at Stanford is considered "elite"? As a holder of the latter, I do. If not, what would you consider an "elite" team?

Maybe you think the statement was pretentious, but your response: "I hope you don’t call your average FAANG and adjacent “elite” - that's sad" is, truly, the most pretentious thing I've ever read on this site. So I'll ask: what do you consider elite?

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raw_anon_11111d ago

Yes I’ve worked at FAANG and the average mid level or even senior developer is not that impressive. Anyone with time on their hands and a decent proficiency can grind enough leetCode to get in.

Not that I did personally, I came in in the internal cloud consulting division (yes a full time blue badge, RSU earning employee).

You know then while all developers have to work at scale. Most of the work is built on pre-existing scalable components.

There are 1 million developers+ possibly if you count all of the FAANG + adjacent developers. I’ve nope a few of them during interviews after I left because I knew they couldn’t handle not being coddled by BigTech and wouldn’t know what to do with ambiguous requirements , an empty AWS account (even if they worked at AWS) and empty git repo.

But back to the point, they very much treated their job as a just a way to earn money and RSUs. They would have been a fool to treat a company as toxic as Amazon as anything else.

Yes I knew what I was getting into going in. I was a 46 and it was my 8th job out of college. I made my money, made connections, put it on my resume and moved on

jazzpush2OP1d ago

I'll ask again: what do you consider elite employment in tech?

raw_anon_11111d ago

These days? Quant, AI employees who have 2 commas in their yearly salaries, etc.

It’s not random mid level developer at a FAANG who “grinded leetCode” or even a senior developer who memorized “Designing Data Intensive Applications”.

You really didn’t think I was some 22 year old posting on r/cscareerquestions who was mesmerized by people “working at a FAANG” did you? For me it was just my 8th job out of now 10 and just another way to exchange labor for money.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 pointsjazzpush22d ago0 comments

I've worked at FAANG, yes, as well as one of the top two frontier AI labs, quant, and now, in a similar role doing very technical research.

0 comments

raw_anon_11111d ago

Yes I’ve worked at FAANG and the average mid level or even senior developer is not that impressive. Anyone with time on their hands and a decent proficiency can grind enough leetCode to get in.

Not that I did personally, I came in in the internal cloud consulting division (yes a full time blue badge, RSU earning employee).

You know then while all developers have to work at scale. Most of the work is built on pre-existing scalable components.

But back to the point, they very much treated their job as a just a way to earn money and RSUs. They would have been a fool to treat a company as toxic as Amazon as anything else.

Yes I knew what I was getting into going in. I was a 46 and it was my 8th job out of college. I made my money, made connections, put it on my resume and moved on

jazzpush2OP1d ago

I'll ask again: what do you consider elite employment in tech?

raw_anon_11111d ago

These days? Quant, AI employees who have 2 commas in their yearly salaries, etc.

It’s not random mid level developer at a FAANG who “grinded leetCode” or even a senior developer who memorized “Designing Data Intensive Applications”.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse