Why I WON'T Return to BIG TECH Job (xGoogle xAmazon Engineer)

I got a job at M$ years ago, I didn't realize it was under the support umbrella (bad idea but I just didn't understand the politics). They hired us to be high end consultants but in the end all the companies wanted was a dedicated support person. I slowly began to get very pissed off and acted out. It was the first time I was fired in my career and it was a shock since I have received perfect performance scores in my career. I was clueless on how these big bloated companies operate. Well 6 months later the whole team was shutdown and all the boot lickers had to go into software support. I survived and got back into the embedded world, sadly Windows CE was a joke and I suffered through a few projects with that piece of dog poop. Be careful working at the big companies, the politics and behind the scenes crap can steamroll over you. There are people that are playing dirty pool and if you don't pay attention you can get screwed. I can say every moron that messed with me down the road got what was coming to them.. The weird part is they all said "I was blindsided"? Shows how clueless these people really are. Be careful and don't ignore the playground politics.

My interest in swe has more to do with audio, which, is a bit better in terms of what they expect based on the job requirements I see between the two. I'm not expecting a near perfect job, I just need one that keeps more of my sanity in tact compared to not.

Been in tech for 5 years now. 2 years at a medium sized company. I purchased a house 5 years ago and I have seen beautiful equity gains. I have about a year left and I’ll cash in all my RSU. I’m originally from Ohio and grew up in the sticks. I plan to sell my home, take my stock and home equity and high tail it to an LCOL area, purchase about 10-15 acres, put a large down payment, and start a small family livestock business. I could surely keep grinding to make more money, but lately I’ve been killing myself with questions about what I want to do versus what I have to do. I think I was disciplined and diligent enough these past years to make my gains in order to go do what I want. To some it may not sound as sexy as being a software engineer at FAANG, but it sounds like the sexiest thing to me.

sad

If you want to succeed in Big Tech, do an MBA

You complain over easy highly paid jobs are you serious...get those benefits who givrsa shit and learn on the side

People need to find meaning outside of work. Work is just work its a job. It literally does not define you. The second you have to leave that job theyll have another guy in your seat within 3 days.

Code maintenance. That's always been the bulk of the work.

I also work for a big tech. The point you made about being a cord is spot on lol )) kids coming out of college think they gonna change the world, the truth is, you are hired to do a job. Improving the CTR from 1.5% to 2% or increasing time on site by 15 seconds is not changing the world, it's a job. Just do it and don't have too many expectations.

The money is too good

at the end of the day i feel like you should work a job (whatever if it’s big tech or small company) get your experience up and see if it’s something you want to do. if you are passionate about tech/ coding you can just do freelancing. you don’t even need a job to continue to do what you love to do.

After putting all efforts into a project, the company throws it in a trash can & move to the next thing. What a way to waste your life....lol Sumtimes the company gives you a project they know wuld not have any head way jst to keep u busy.

This was exactly my learning having left Google for a unicorn startup a year ago. To be fair, the grass isn't greener anywhere and every choice has its pros and cons. At G, you're best off accepting your cog status and stop caring. At a startup, you have stress from a chaotic environment and not knowing whether all your work will be worth it. Personally, as I get older and think about raising a family, I like Google again but in one's 20s Google is a bad choice IF you care for your work

Precisely the story of my corporate life: caring too much about the project, the product, the outcome, the details, the quality. All of it for nothing other than a large collection of disappointments, headaches, frustrations, lack of motivation, careless attitude, mediocrity, waste of my precious time, toxic environments polluting my mind and my soul, backstabbing, unfairnesses, cruelty, and the list goes on and on.

It depends on what you work on, I'm at a faang and I get to work on interesting problems that never solved before in the entire industry.

So basically, you need to just not give a fuck and impress the morons.

All slaves to housing, made enough money thus enjoy. Future is definitely not in America as tech downturn keeps growing.

I really cannot relate. I'll wait till I'm an ex-google, ex-facebook, and ex-amazon software engineer. Then I'll share my views on big tech.

Same I recently worked at Meta and Google and I think I won't go back to those companies

Why is Amazon's UI still dogshet? Why don't they work on that?

2 types of people in my team - those who care about the product and want it to succeed, and those who are there as a career move. The latter does not care about the team or the product and unfortunately are usually the ones who have the most influence. They will stay in the team max 2 years before leaving it in shambles after implementing all their poor ideas.

Grass is always greener on the other side. Ultimately, either adapt to the environment or do what is best for yourself.

Actually, these are the same problems in any engineering works.

Avoid working for any of these big tech companies (GAFAM)

Big tech companies are about corporate enrollment, corporate adjustment, corporate (insert whatever) ..

ChatGPT in 10 years "I'll take your job. Don't worry"

Loved my year at Google in NYC. Got to travel to the Googleplex & Seattle. Lunches were pretty wild, insane Christmas parties & watching Blondie, with a beer in my hand & being paid for it will always be a high point. By the time I left, I had definitely come to terms that Google was really just another big company, looking to make money & much more bureaucratic than you'd think. Makes for some great party stories tho. Happy I did it but really don't miss it. Found a job that was a better fit.

Well I was never laid off but I saw the outsourcing coming so I went to law school. Patent prosecution was easy and quite boring. Pays well.

I’m going to make a prediction The days of being stupidly overpaid are in the past

Face it. If u were fired is coz u r not competitive enough. You'd work in small companies only.

Do you think AI will just code it the best already? So people don't have to rack their brain and get it wrong?

So you were playing by their rules to climb the ladder and they still laid you off?
Or you were not and that's what got you laid off?

99% of all software problems have been solved and they're free on the internet. What are left are efficiency problems.

I work for a non-tech company with same problems as what you have mentioned. Doing boring projects, using same old open source projects which are already built, building same old CRUD stuff for business logic(using REST, grpc, graphql whatever your company uses), using same old libraries/apis that were already built by another team. Only thing good might be WLB but from what I have read on blind about google or microsoft, I reckon the WLB there is not too different compared to my company.

But unlike Big Tech folks, I make way way less money. So all the disadvantages that you mentioned + less money. Just another perspective. If you have spent 10 years in big tech, you might think that represents the majority of workforce. But there are way more jobs in non-tech than in big tech like Satya Nadella mentioned in his recent interviews.(doesnt include hot startups either )

Are you a musician ?

In my experience I have seen many devs these days are becoming more political meaning they keep talking about others weaknesses while providing sandwich compliments. The simple answer is be better at what you do, start loving what you are doing and be critical of someone’s work without hurting their feelings. It’s not about big tech or small tech, it’s the path and process that you choose to enjoy. I see now a lot of videos like this popping up all over the internet after the big layoffs. I am thankful you took the time to share your experiences but I feel like I learned nothing useful.

I'm confused. You think anyone WANTS to work for Amazon? Or a big tech company? I'm sorry. You might be more educated than me. But if you can't see the bigger picture.... there's no more choice. You might of got out of Google. But you're going to eventually work for an identical employer down the road. There's nothing left.

I can concur, the dog and pony show is real, and is pretty lame.

Are Ruby/Javascript/Python/c# bootcamps still relevant? Sad to see so many let go. Does cyber stand a chance?

You will have this experience working anywhere.

All you need is a few years to save a million dollars and then you can do your own investing and start your own business, which you have done.

Finally someone who is telling it like it is.

your views will go away up if you add "... as a millionaire" to the end of every sentence 😂

Thanks

Welcome to the 80/20 rule omnipresent in software development. Here you have seen that 20% of the workforce are doing 80% of the meaningful work. The other 80% are fighting over the scraps. If you are not top end, avoid top end companies - if you are midtable in Uni, your best bet is to get into a top company and get mentored. Then after 3 years move to a lower table company where you can be a big player, then you will get the nice pieces of work. Good tip that.

I spent nearly 5 years working @ Amazon and I even interviewed for their IT role, although I bombed the interview haha. Hearing about the massive furloughs going on with Amazon and Big Tech I’m glad I never got hired for the IT role and then decided to part ways with Amazon.

I have failed many annual relationship reviews for not making the chicken soup.

TL;DW: You are butt-hurt after being fired.

Love your channel you got a new subscriber