> I’m tired of the FAANG mentality personally.

As someone that never had a desire nor ever made an attempt to work at any of those companies, do you mind elaborating on the mentality of such places?

I'm just your boring below-average to average dev, so I know I'm not cut for those types of places, but it never truly bothered me anyway. Any reason that I can personally think as to why I would work for such a company would either be due to my own egotistical desires or for monetary reasons, but those were never strong enough to actually compel me.

I am just mainly curious about two things:

1. Is working at those places all it's cracked up to be?

2. Assuming one had to work hard to get into such companies, was the juice worth the squeeze?

I've often wondered if one's experiences for these companies is often something akin to the old advice of, "Don't meet your heroes." In other words, was the conflicting dyad of expectations vs. reality present?

It has turned into something similar to what people in trading companies on Wall Street deal with. Constant grind, unrealistic expectations, and projects done in order to get a promotion instead of because it provides value to the customers or the business.

That said the amount that you make is insane some of the smartest engineers I’ve ever worked with have been at these companies and a lot of them have really strong engineering cultures, and standards.

The current work environment seems designed to use up bright young engineers, and burn them out within a few years. This is a significant shift from 15 years ago, where it was a much more sustainable place to be.