Ask HN: Is working for FAANG as big of a deal in Europe as it is in the US??

As a Polish guy, as I see it:

Majority of people just think of FAAMG as "giant companies", so working for them is always very good, but it's not the same level as e.g reddit's cs careers question where people seem to be insanely desperated to get there

I'm currently studying (and working full time), so I'm close with opinions of peole that are in 20-25 years old range that are relatively new to the industry (0-3 years of exp) and people very rarely talk about FAAMG or any serious attempts to get to them

When it comes to online communities, then there are people who work in US or in FAAMG-ish companies and there's way more (relatively to _normal_ programmers/computer people) talk about it, but there's also a lot of people who prefer e.g Zurich, London and similar cool places.

So, overall I don't think that it is BIG deal, it is for sure significant topic that's happening from time to time because BIG tech companies are associated with doing cool stuff instead of CRUD Apps, so people can peak there, but nothing crazy.

I'm personally interested because I'm bored with CRUDs and I'd want to try to compete (or just test myself) against good people during recruitment :)

Working at a FAANG in northern Europe. I'm originally from Greece and can say that they're a very nice opportunity because they usually offer nice relocation packages and are looking for International candidates.

Also depending on the product, it is possible to move to US positions if you'd like, so there's that.

One of the best pros of working in a FAANG in Europe though is that for some countries, the companies inherit the culture. In my case, the country has an excellent work life balance culture. This has caused quite a few employees who moved to a US based product and then returned here, escaping the much worse working conditions in comparison. The only takeaway is that the compensation is much lower than the US, but this is largely due to the extremely higher taxes.

Just my opinion from the circles I hang around in, in terms of tech sector - not particularly a huge deal to work for a FAANG company, it’s mostly just like working for any another company.

I don't work at FAANG but from knowing the EU market from friends and public data on Twitter, salaries in (non-FAANG) US companies like Uber, Yelp, Datadog are mostly not achievable in other companies for individual contributors, due to stock grants and general huge pile of VC cash the US companies have.

I worked for companies at various sizes FAANG and non-FAANG in London and I would say what FAANG pays is much better than what most of the startups or other companies such as banks pay.

Base salaries are usually similar but RSU and other benefits make the real difference. For example, most of the tech companies in London don't even provide health insurance, since they rely on NHS.

Startups try to use options to convince people but what you're given mostly wouldn't make you a millionaire in the event of exit or IPO.

I guess the other group of companies who could match what FAANG offers as a whole package would be hedge funds. I would say it's harder to enter them tho, since they still can throw your CV to the bin just because you don't have a degree from oxbridge.

It's mostly like working for any other large European business in my experience. Lots of the FAANG status in the US seems to come from the high wage premiums and the isolated SV culture which doesn't really exist in Europe where FAANG is just located where everyone else is.

I’m in Canada. I get paid quite well in my non-FAANG role, I have way more vacation than I’d get at any company that size. I’d probably make a little more at a FAANG role but the salaries here are not the insane salaries they are in the US, and I prefer the vacation. Also at any large company up here I’d have to give ownership of any code I write in my spare time to my employer, and at small companies it’s easier to negotiate that kind of thing and get opportunities to work on open source. Possibly if I was in Vancouver I’d make a lot more working for a FAANG company, but my cost of living would be insane, and they basically try to get you to move to the US. I have some friends at some of those companies, and they’ve tried to poach me, and I’ve consistently turned them down.

On every technical talk, there's at least one presenter bragging about previous experience at FAANG. No exceptions, always 1 slide.

From the U.S. perspective is it really still prestigious to work for them? I think these companies have been causing lots of ethical issues and having negative impacts on society lately all in the name of profit.

> Are FAANG jobs really that different compared to the rest of opportunities people have in Europe (in the same way that they are in the US)?

The difference is exactly the same, just that salaries are much worse overall in Europe so even though FAANG pay the same percentage more those salaries here don't look as impressive. The main reason not a lot of people work for FAANG in Europe is that FAANG doesn't hire a lot of people in Europe so those jobs are really hard to get compared to in USA.

In Sweden FAANG (and MS) are more desirable as their salaries tend to be higher and include more profitable stocks and bonuses. Other than that the technology and work conditions are more or less comparable to local companies.

The only problem is that the local branches tend to be small, probably due to higher costs of salaries, real estate and operations.

Our only FAANG here is the state, and yes, this was always a big deal. Low effort, protected job, high income.

We do have the same amount of tech cartels (and other cartels), but working for one is not a big deal here. Here managers do hate engineers, so it's not high profile. And managers working for a FAANG don't have the highest respect neither. They could as well try to get into politics.

Among all my friends from Europe working in IT, no one works or as far as I know wants to work specifically in a FAANG.

Im originaly from EU (immigrated here when I was a kid) and currently work for FAANG, so I have a lot of extended family in Poland/Russia.

To put all of EU into one basket in terms of this is not really accurate. For example, in Russia/Poland and likely other Slavic countries where people saw a much better life when capitalistic principles were adopted, there is definitely a prestige associated with working at a big famous company and earning big bucks. Ironically, there is very much aura of "earn good salary, then spend it on BMW/Merc/Audi and a big house to impress your friends and family" with people from that background, which seems significantly less applicable to native US employees within the company.

Meanwhile, in places like Switzerland/Germany/France, while my exposure to those people is limited (friends of family in Poland/Russia), it seems that people care more about the quality of life than high salary. In those regions, high salaries have traditionally been very hard to get (you need connections almost more than talent), so most people don't see this within reach, and as a result value things like good work life balance, ability to have a family, vacation, and other common things.

Nope. I’ve never met anyone who expressed a desire to work for FAANG.

As far as I can tell, it's not that big of a deal in the US. It might be a big deal in southern California. The US is much bigger than that

It’s only big deal in the USA because outside FAANG, technology really doesn’t pay that well. There are a few other companies, but your income is capped elsewhere