I'm torn about this. I've been in FAANG for a while now, and while I do think I'd be more successful/happier at a smaller company (and I actually was), I don't think "smaller" tech is necessarily going to be better, especially right now.
Maybe we should just accept that these are just jobs, and no glamour is necessary -- so maybe big tech jobs losing it is not the worst thing. Let the talent spread and create more "glamorous" jobs.
Wages in the tech industry are still much higher than equivalent jobs factoring hours worked and additional compensation.
As long as that remains true, tech will remain a hot industry.
The ability to spend almost no money to generate ridiculously high margins (50-70%) is hard to beat. The only similar industry is Finance, but that is heavily gatekept due to the limited need for staffing.
+1 on this sentiment. I myself see myself leaving big tech. In the past I drank the kool-aid. There was a mission. There was a vision, and there were growth opportunities. Now I see people leaving left and right and none is inspired anymore - since it became clear that the mission is solely “making the world a better place by relying on our shareholders to do something with their money”.
I especially have the feeling that - while being in AI - leadership simply jumped too early on that train and now has teams full of people knowing that every project is set up for failure…
For me, it is management processes such as sprints, Jira story points, OKRs, interviews asking completely irrelevant questions, performance reviews based on completely useless metrics, stack ranking that pits people against each other - all this shit makes me want to quit.
If I am going to build important features and services, constantly improve my own and engineering skills, know our systems through and through, be on-call, deal with cross team issues, fix bugs, mentor juniors, and essentially keep everything running day in, day out - the least I can expect from management is to be on my side and not be my adversary. As long as this relationship is adversarial - as it is in big tech - I couldn't care less about the job, the managers, the services. For all I care, it can all sink.
Some more from a few weeks ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39317549
(no need for BBC in the title)
Big tech jobs used to be fun. "Move fast and break things". It was the ultimate job for the intelligent underachiever who didn't want to waste time on paperwork and routines.
Over the last ten years I have watched the number of PMs and middle managers explode across the industry. Executives from other industries have crept in, bastardized agile, commoditized developer work, and began micromanaging everything. You get to build less cool stuff - there's less opportunity for achievement or advancement. So now these jobs are not much different than garden variety white collar work.
I think there are a variety of valid reasons: The market capital that created unicorns is gone - and with high interest rates comes risk aversion. The NYTimes decision to adopt an anti-tech editorial policy changed public perception. Pushes for diverse hiring practices clashed with tech's original meritocracy structure. Increasing regulation. The age of the average coder has gone up and so the corps have matured too.
But more than anything, I think it comes down to nature abhorring a vacuum. The other corporations in our economy are mired by risk-averse gatekeeping admins and executives - it was only a matter of time before enough consultants and management firms made their way into the building.
I would agree if tech jobs without the perks were worse than outside the industry, but they are not. I worked for other industries before and let me tell you they are far worse on all objectively measured metrics. Worse pay, less emphasis on WLB, RTO 5 days a week, worse tech stacks, worse work culture and non existent perks are the norm everywhere else.
Sure there’s exceptions everywhere, but unless you’re self employed and contract in other industries, tech is still where it’s better.