> I find many of these companies the opposite of prestigious.
I agree, but perhaps not for the reasons you'd think. The "moral stain" of having worked for these companies only matters if hiring managers elsewhere make it matter. They don't. Throughout the industry, they're looking at potential return on investment and little else. Having worked at Facebook might matter if you want to go work for the White House or New York Times, but not for another tech company.
The reason I think working at those companies is anti-prestigious is that they're such unique self-contained worlds. If I see that somebody only has experience at FAANG since college, I know that they've become accustomed to having a vast array of systems and libraries and experts and other kinds of support available to them that aren't so available anywhere else. Maybe they'll learn to adjust to how computing is in the rest of the world. Maybe they'll be absolutely helpless, functioning at a one- or two-year level despite five or seven years among "the best engineers in the world" or whatever they're saying nowadays. I don't attach a premium to that experience. I attach a discount.
I agree, but perhaps not for the reasons you'd think. The "moral stain" of having worked for these companies only matters if hiring managers elsewhere make it matter. They don't. Throughout the industry, they're looking at potential return on investment and little else. Having worked at Facebook might matter if you want to go work for the White House or New York Times, but not for another tech company.
The reason I think working at those companies is anti-prestigious is that they're such unique self-contained worlds. If I see that somebody only has experience at FAANG since college, I know that they've become accustomed to having a vast array of systems and libraries and experts and other kinds of support available to them that aren't so available anywhere else. Maybe they'll learn to adjust to how computing is in the rest of the world. Maybe they'll be absolutely helpless, functioning at a one- or two-year level despite five or seven years among "the best engineers in the world" or whatever they're saying nowadays. I don't attach a premium to that experience. I attach a discount.