......I don't know what to say. I know a few people are like this too. On the other hand, I think I do a lot of things for my employer and constantly learn/challenge myself, but don't make anywhere near FAANG SWE. I am trying hard to pass onsite FAANG interviews, and still failing. So I'm still Leetcoding now.
But hearing stories like this just kinda demotivates me and confuses me more. Most non FAANG companies have no interest in keeping people who wants to stay purely technical like me, so in the end I'll have to end up at FAANG/unicorns to get better compensation. But on the other hand, joining FAANG seems soul crushing.
Try looking at what smaller companies are doing interesting things but don't have the whole FAANG "halo".
I've never worked at a FAANG, but from my reading here and other places I think that the path to an interesting job would probably be easier at a smaller company than at a FAANG.
Don't confuse the mystique for reality. Google is just a large company now. The mystique helps them recruit talent. The interviews are mostly a filtering process since they have far more people applying than they actually need. Being a large company, they have more than their fair share of bozos who are now the gatekeepers of that process. The only thing that Google management really cares about at this point is maximizing profit. It's just a business and that's reflected in everything they do and don't do these days.
There's nothing wrong with any of that. If you want to make more money and/or get Google on the resume to open up some new doors, keep trying and you'll probably eventually find a way in. Just don't think it's going to be some sort of techie nirvana... it's going to be a lumbering bureaucratic beast ruled by politics as virtually all large companies are.
If you're looking for technical challenge and growth, you probably want to be looking at smaller tech companies who are where Google was 10+ years ago.
Don't read too much into it. You can certainly find soul-crushing stuff in FAANG, but it doesn't mean that it's all that's available there. You might still have to deal with it as a stepping stone towards more interesting things in your career - but when you know that it's merely means to an end, not the thing you're going to be doing for decades to come, it's a very different story.
Ex-Amazon employee here. I started at Amazon right out of college so I definitely learned a lot, but the work itself wasn't really challenging. Most of what I worked on were basic CRUD services and web UI's.
Once the newness of the job wore off, I started getting really depressed because it felt like my work was meaningless, but there were also really high expectations. 90% of the work at FAANG companies is boring, and the really interesting, cutting-edge stuff is only done by a handful of teams.
But hearing stories like this just kinda demotivates me and confuses me more. Most non FAANG companies have no interest in keeping people who wants to stay purely technical like me, so in the end I'll have to end up at FAANG/unicorns to get better compensation. But on the other hand, joining FAANG seems soul crushing.
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