Is it a bad time to apply to FAANG companies?

It's honestly not that hard to work at these firms as long as you let go of any sense of self and adhere to the dog and pony show of algorithm interviews. After that, your chances of employment are mostly a lottery, which you will eventually win if you're good at the show.

If money is important to you, do it. The sacrifices you'll generally make:

- you'll need to work on POCs (new products) in your off-time. Most of these companies don't schedule innovation.

- promotions are based on project delivery and impact within huge orgs, which makes it more hard.

- you'll probably run through a number of teams before you find one you like. Colleagues are generally good, management is lackluster, and execs are mostly poor. There are exceptions. I found a place where management and execs are great, but I'm not sold that this paradigm will endure.

I don’t think it’s a bad time. I suspect a lot of the layoffs have more to do with the value brought by particular employees versus their salary. During COVID salaries spiked and big offers were extended to mediocre candidates. The job hoppers who took advantage of an over heated market but ultimately don’t deliver on big expectations are some of the people I see getting laid off. At least anecdotally that’s what it looks like from my LinkedIn feed.

I always warn young engineers that a big pay comes with big expectations. It’s more important to set yourself up for a long career than to eek out a few good years and burn out in an environment that’s unhealthy. I’ve seen it happen, even at smaller companies.

If working for big tech is what youbwant to do, there's no such thing as a bad time to go for it. That said, you'll have a harder time finding opportunities in this currently bout of layoffs and hiring freezes than you would have this time last year.

My advice is think about what you want to do day in and day out, rather than just focusing on "big tech". There's plenty of coding roles outside of big tech, and a lot of industry jobs haven't been affected by layoffs. If you love working on web apps or data processing (eg) you don't need to restrict yourself to big tech in order to get paid for that.

More competitive now than before, but certainly not impossible.

The FAANG I work at currently has just under a thousand published open positions. Checking the public facing web site, the positions in teams I know about look like real positions that will be filled.

I interviewed last June at Google and hit the hiring freeze. I finally got a team match in November, for which an offer letter never materialized. It was for an ML team and -- anecdotally -- all the people I know there who were laid off were working on ML projects.

Personally, I've given up. Maybe I'll try again in a couple years but I'd say the whole thing was just a waste of time.

Why do you want to go to a FAANG in the first place? Lots of smaller tech companies out there with a proven business model beyond throwing cheap money at diminishing opportunities for growth.

Well they’ve frozen hiring for most roles so I’d say yes unless you can do ML

Honestly no. No FAANG one is really hiring for a generic back end role. They just did a bunch of layoffs. There are a ton of people in "hiring committee" that are just kind of sitting in limbo. Now is not the time.

I have 6 years too and did the big tech interview circuit last year. Many of them cancelled my interviews when they started the hiring freeze (one of them 3 different times!). I even "passed" 2 of them but still did not got hired. One of them just straight up cancelled, another one I am in "team matching" but my recruiter got laid off and haven't had any communication or talked to a team. Last communication with my recruiter she said there were way more people waiting to be matched than there are teams.

The piece I would be worried about is getting hired and either losing the offer or getting laid off after a few weeks/months when the next round of layoffs comes down.

If you are currently unemployed, maybe there's not much opportunity cost there.

Aren't nearly all FAANGs on a hiring freeze?

It’s never too early to reach out and build contacts. If you can get on a team’s short list of candidates now, well, eventually the hiring freezes will lift.

You could. There is a labor market. Markets are influenced by supply and demand. With 10’s of thousands of layoffs, the supply of candidates will be very high. But demand for swe is high on average overtime. If you’ve been interested in this work, then the market shouldn’t scare you off. Artists make art because they have to. Not everything is about pay and other luxury. Try trying.

The only good time to apply to FAANG companies is at the beginning of your career or the end of your career.

For data scientists who might be curious about life as a DS at FAANG or applying, i published a blog post about my DS experience at Amazon -https://medium.com/@Sanga_me/my-data-science-experience-at-a...

i got to learn a few things very quickly, and I enjoyed it. ultimately, the biggest benefit is the brand on my resume. work-wise I am not certain that i learned things there that I wouldn't have learned at any other company. Probably like most other companies, your learnings and interest diminishes over time, so you can join, experience and leave when you feel its the right time.

For fun, I looked at the Apple jobs site, particularly HW and ML, which is what I kind of do/have my Ph.D. in. OK, so it seems they are hiring. OK, so it does seem, they are also looking for their pick of the litter. They want hardcore people, with hardcore experience.

No its not. I argue that its actually a great time to apply. Yes there is more competition because of the layoffs but you should know that as businesses layoff a big number of those are for low-value positions/work. If you are competent (you should consider yourself as such) then you will have no "bad time" while applying. Oh and please change your understanding of preparation and applying, applying is a part of the preparation for big tech. If you're out of practice with interviews then apply more than youre comfortable with and interview

I'd wait at least until Q3 2023. The current climate is interesting since first world economies are on the brink of a direct conflict with Russia + rising inflation + projected recession. Man, Millenials are being tested for sure.

With the title inflation that's happened in the last few years, what I notice is half the job postings are staff+. The other half are senior. Very few junior or 'normal eng' roles.

Generally, it's a bad idea to apply to companies doing layoffs. But then again, we has a terrible job market in 2020, and an amazing one in 2021, so who knows how long?

Do you just want to work at FAANG to gain a modicum of status in your peer group or are you actually inspired by what they do?

It's an insanely bad time. Meta, Google, Amazon have hiring freezes and have had layoffs, so that leaves Apple and Netflix. There are 200,000 experienced candidates job hunting right now. Ask yourself, why would Apple hire you over one of them?

Peak advertising has come home to roost as folks are shedding reoccuring subscriptions to things like the N in FAANG. Companies that have intrinsic value are worth applying to, as was always the case. A lot has changed in a short time, and some seem to forget that.

This is like asking in the middle of a world war, is it a bad time to join the army if I'm trying not to die? This is the worst time to be entering the big tech job market in 14 years.

Seems like it would be a great time to apply seeing as how they cut a lot of dead weight.

If you have been preparing, I would look at the layoffs as a sign that it is your time. Good luck, soldier!

My group at Apple is still definitely hiring. My team has been trying to grow headcount for a while now.

If you're really good, go ahead and apply.

Manager usually was your colleagues before.

I did not see how your big tech life is as hard as you described if your colleagues are “generally good”.

No it’s not. You’ll need to wait about two months. They typically avoid hiring after layoffs for some period of time.

If you have the skills they need right now then no, it's not a bad time to apply.

Well, you’re unlikely to need to worry about being laid off.

as long as you understand that their recent layoffs are not an abberation, but part of the business cycle

make sure yoiu have an exit plan

I have a friend at Meta who is exceedingly unhappy (but sticking with them due to visa issues). He advised me to avoid Meta at least for another year even though they are hiring in ML roles.