What is it like to work at Facebook at this stage of my career? I am presently a very senior engineer and work on r&d projects including new product development as well as presenting at conferences and writing articles on our advances.
While Facebook may pay much better, would I be throwing away a pretty good job just to be paid a ton but work at a much lower level? Is it not Facebook’s strategy to “overhire” in the sense of putting extremely qualified people on what would generally be considered menial tasks?
And what about age discrimination and work/life balance? Do people last at Facebook for longer than a few years? Are parenting and family responsibilities honored?
Work/life balance isn't as good as other FAANG, but not necessarily awful, though it depends on team. There seems to be good leave and a general support for parenting and family responsibilities, but I can't speak too well since I'm not a parent. If you learn about their parental leave, that should give a reasonable idea of how they value parenting.
If you don't think there's an amount of money you can get paid to not be the "biggest fish", then it may just be worth getting an offer to request a raise at your current company. Regardless of how you feel, I think it's totally worth interviewing with Facebook, to learn about the company and what they value.
For me, FB is a great place to work. It's easily the best in terms of comp, leadership caring about employee well-being, career advanced, internal mobility, that I've experienced in 20 years in the workforce. I'm around 40 years old, I work on challenging problems, and feel like I'm making a significant positive impact in the world.
HN is probably not a great place to get this information - I expect this thread will devolve quickly. I suggest you work w/ your FB recruiter to connect with current FB employees, so you can ask them directly - there's a program where you can shop for a current employee who will answer any/all questions you have.
If you put an email in your profile, I'd be happy to connect.
We have plenty of developers in their 40s here and you can do a TON of different things from robotics to AR, AI/ML, APIs, Web Applications, mobile - all with incredible, awesome, smart people.
We have a great work/life balance, good equipment, flexible time off, and many other perks. We're all remote right now and likely will be for quite a while.