In long term, what matters more: where you work or what you work on?
Posted by jaffaKnx@reddit | ExperiencedDevs | View on Reddit | 45 comments
For people further along in their careers, how much has company brand mattered compared to the actual work you did?
I’m nearing 8 YOE and don’t currently have FAANG experience. I’m trying to understand whether that brand signal meaningfully changes future opportunities, or whether scope, impact, and technical depth matter more once you’re past the early-career stage.
I haven’t had problems landing interviews at big tech and but is that not going to necessarily the case as I grow older? Trying to understand what industry values. Because if you talk about impact, there’s no better place than working at a startup.
For those who have made it far in their careers, did having a big-name company on your resume materially open doors later, or did the quality of your work and ownership matter more?
wobblydramallama@reddit
secret option C: who i work with
I can work at the best company and the best project...if i'm surrounded by assholes... it makes everything terrible
Helix_Aurora@reddit
Neither.
Who you work with matters, and not as a name drop. Being both competent and confident, while not beeing an asshat is the magic formula to ease the career ladder.
Learning how to do favors for people and solve the right problems at the right time to earn trust.
In most companies that are not FAANG, advancement is a function of forcing your way into a room that no one invited you into and being genuinely helpful.
That internal advancement gwts you where you need to go.
chills716@reddit
Depends what you’re after. I prefer to learn as opposed to have clout. I’ve worked with people from “big tech” that didn’t know shit, only worked on small irrelevant projects, but were hired because of the big name on the resume.
mq2thez@reddit
Working at a FAANG is good, but everyone knows that plenty of people go through those companies without really delivering anything.
That name will get your resume taken seriously, but if you can’t back it up by really talking about your work in depth and showing actual results, it won’t help you get the job.
mechkbfan@reddit
As an interviewer, 100% this.
Seeing FAANG or similar on a resume gets will move you towards top of list who to follow up with, but at end of day, my interview process is still the same, and I'd still ask same project / technical questions.
Something higher than that though is if you're high visibility in the community, e.g. open source contributor/author, presenter, etc.
Once interviewed a JavaScript guy who literally wrote the packages we were using in our frontend, but HR wouldn't budge on our salary brackets. Even tried to create a new role because there was so much opportunity by hiring them, but nope :(
printf_hello_world@reddit
That is one short-sighted HR department
SmartCustard9944@reddit
Aren’t they all? Hyperbole a bit, but still
Material_Policy6327@reddit
I don’t think it’s much hyperbole lol
Material_Policy6327@reddit
It’s what you worked on IMO. Worked with tons of ex FAANG who barely could do shit even after being there for 5 years.
Old_Location_9895@reddit
What you work on compounds faster if you want to stay in your field. Otherwise it's where you work.
I worked at a tier 2 company in SDVs but got an offer from Waymo because I had domain experience. I wanted to stay in my field so that was great.
I only got callbacks from tier-1 non-SDV companies if they personally knew someone that worked with me.
jaco129@reddit
Neither matter as much as who you work with. Personal connections over your career and being a likable person will open doors faster than anything you can put on your resume.
double-click@reddit
Both teach you different things and provide hiring indicators. Picking one over the other is silly.
eagle_eye_smeagle_i@reddit
Having a big tech on resume is unfortunately the fastest way to get your resume shortlisted, especially if there are a lot of candidates.
I went from spending 10 years at nonFAANG to FAANG and have been in different companies for the last 6 years. Joining the first FAANG suddenly opened doors to companies I got no interest from in the past.
bombaytrader@reddit
This isn’t necessarily true. Look at Anthropic new hires. They come from Meta but also lot of other random places.
jaffaKnx@reddit (OP)
i don’t have faang experience yet I didn’t have trouble landing interviews at most of them so I’m not sure how true is your first statement.
equipoise-young@reddit
Chiming in as someone who's never worked for FAANG but who has a few fortune 500 companies on his resume, it absolutely helps. But I agree that you need the skills to back it up.
georgewhayduke@reddit
Who you work with matters most. Both in the quality of time while you are there and the network afterwards.
GlobalCurry@reddit
I have some big name companies on my resume, but what's interesting is that the actual interesting work I did was at smaller companies. It kind of bums me out when interviewers zero in on those larger companies and ask questions about them because of the name when I want to talk more about the experience at smaller companies that is typically more relevant to the jobs I'm applying to.
Outside-Storage-1523@reddit
I think they are correlated. Sometimes you will only find certain jobs in certain companies.
Personally, since I’m just a data guy, I’d say companies matter more because you can find data jobs in every corner.
metaphorm@reddit
depends on your career goals. if you want to work at big tech, then prior experience at big tech is the most valuable thing on your resume.
but if you want to in different kinds of environments or on different kinds of systems, then what you work on is the most important thing.
in both cases, your prior experience makes you appealing for more work in similar types of environments.
robert4221@reddit
In my experience it's far far easier to get interviews for any type of role with a hot company on your resume versus without one.
KCdehImposter@reddit
Having FAANG on the resume has put me on the fast track when applying to new roles. It's 50/50 whether people care about the actual work I did there.
The main benefit I found from FAANG is the network I built. About half of them are stuck in FAANG, but the others go on to work at really cool companies. When I left FAANG, an old coworker became my new boss at a startup.
It's been a few years now since I left, and I find myself explaining more about the smaller companies I worked at and trying to justify them. With FAANG, it was usually a short conversation.
Fidodo@reddit
The network building is huge. Of course you need to back it up by being good so expensive co workers want to continue to work with you.
vjsfbay@reddit
💵 is the right answer here folks
jaffaKnx@reddit (OP)
if faang is downlevelling you where you have to take a paycut, you do think it actually is better to walk away from it?
SmartCustard9944@reddit
I think you need macro visibility (the company name/brand) and micro visibility (your personal success stories there). It’s not different from advertising a product. You are the product.
big-papito@reddit
Neither - who you worked with matters. For a while I didn't even interview. People liked me and wanted to work with me again. Not the case anymore but that's a different story.
davearneson@reddit
Most hiring manages higher based on the brand names on your resume cuz I can't tell the difference between really good people and average people. So once you get a FAANG company on your resume, you're set for life
__sopranos__@reddit
I have worked at two enterprises (not FAANG) and two startups. I have 11 YOE and for my peace of mind, I did two things: 1. Improved the quality of my work, my skills and my network. This allowed me to "get" more ownership automatically. 2. Stopped using getting offer from FAANG or big tech as a measure of my worth.
With the scale of layoffs and the following statements by the company leadership, I don't want to join FAANG. They don't value you, you have to be part of a herd and the only identity you will be left with is a FAANGer.
If your work is great and relevant, it will automatically open doors for you. The reason I say that is because great work produces impact (so someone is benefitting from your work), and it cannot be done in isolation (you will have a network to stimulate your mind to come up with great ideas). So you will get noticed by the right people and doors will open automatically.
foreverpostponed@reddit
I worked four frigging years at faang. I learnt absolutely nothing. I do not recommend.
The projects you work on matter far more imo.
sonofasonofason@reddit
Just curious, did you join FAANG early in your career?
foreverpostponed@reddit
Yes.
jaffaKnx@reddit (OP)
that’s scary. but do you still get noticed by people if you don’t have faang experience yet you have some interesting work down the road though?
foreverpostponed@reddit
Yes! I don't mention my faang projects anymore. My startup projects are far more juicy.
sum0deads@reddit
But you still have faang backing which will for better or worse lend your startup project to more credibility. For long term career having faang experience is 100% going to help you in the long run. You see how big enterprise work. Some good some bad. Lot of politics, but you learn to manage that shit which is in itself an experience.
mad_pony@reddit
Where. My experience with FAANG was fantastic. I was surrounded with very smart folks and learned a lot. In FAANG you don't just learn how to build things, but, most importantly, you learn how to do it right and do it on scale.
sonofasonofason@reddit
Same. I was non-FAANG for 10 years followed by Google. I was very happy with that order from a personal growth perspective. Google really sharpened my skills as an engineer. It would have been very different had I joined straight out of college without the nitty gritty experience from smaller companies first. Google infrastructure abstracts away a lot and tries to make it difficult to screw things up. That makes sense for Google, but it also takes away learning opportunities
timwaaagh@reddit
Where you work matters more.
kosmos1209@reddit
Unfortunately, where you worked. At big companies, I barely did anything and it’s the ones that gets asked about the most. At startups, I did a lot and everything and if the startup doesn’t succeed business wise, people tend to not care
HuckleberryWeird3283@reddit
FAANG for door, startup for interview
AvailableFalconn@reddit
A lot of startup devs I’ve worked with or interviewed have wide but shallow knowledge. If you’re interviewing at a small or midsize company, it can help. But at a large company for even a generalist backend role, that breadth doesn’t count for much.
kosmos1209@reddit
Yep. It’s true the other way around as well. One mid sized company I worked at hired a lot of ex FAANG engineers and they couldn’t be nimble and just get shit done on time if it involved anything outside of their area.
failing_memory@reddit
The brand gets your foot in the door, but after 8 years you're competing on substance anyway. I'd worry less about FAANG as a checkbox and more about whether your current role lets you own something meaningful end to end. Recruiters might glance at the company name first, but hiring managers at your level will grill you on what you actually shipped and the decisions you made. If you can speak credibly about impact, that matters more than the logo.
sleepyguy007@reddit
i've had a pattern of rotating through kind of lesser tier non faang tech companies, and random startups over the years. and i've worked with people who basically have only worked at places that no one has ever heard of. probably worked at least 12 employers, and i think it slightly helps you because there is some idea that theres standards at say IBM or whatever. I worked at a startup that IBM bought, and personally I think IBM is trash, but the recruiters were a lot more interested in me after I switched linkedin to IBM post acquisition.
HR/recruiters tend to be lazy so they like want to scan your resume and assume big names = probably better hiring bar previously. actual interviewers probably dont care as much once you get in funnel.
uniquesnowflake8@reddit
The connections you make matter most. I think working somewhere prestigious is a good way to get those but it’s not the only way