Differences

Hey all, Im 7 YOE. I have worked in the defense industry my first few years (RTX, Lockheed Martin, BAE, etc), then during the hiring height of 2020-2022 I went to FAANG-level company and spent a few years there in their cloud based system. THis year I got laid off and after a few months I was able to get a job in a big tech cloud based system. I wouldnt consider my current company FAANG level but id say most people would know it. I will pre-face this that it is my experience. Im not saying every project in each industry is like this, I've known people in AWS who claim to not have to do anything past 5 pm and get great reviews and bonuses. I know people in defense who say they work a shitload of hours to get things done. Here are some of the differences I've seen from all three jobs: # Onboarding: Defense - didnt really have an onboarding. It was just kind of, build and run the system. I remember they gave me a task to change the headers of a few files just as an excuse to get me to build. FAANG - they bascially gave me an onboarding doc, that didnt even seem official. It was just a doc that got passed around with steps. I was surpriused nobody had ever took time to put it in a version control style doc system. It was just in the middle of some doc sharing system online. Current: to my surprise their onboarding was the best and most chill. They gave me clear indiciation of where they expect me to be. The first week was just 3 hour courses each day of onboarding for my company. The second week was a self paced class for onboarding for my team. The videos were very instructive, and easy to follow along and my favorite part was they basically gave us guidelines for how to get promoted. # work life balance: Defense - probably had the best work life balance of the bunch. I never had to think about work after 5pm. By 6 the building was a ghost town with a few stragglers. They worked on a 9/80 schedule so I had 3 day weekends 2-3 times a month (26 times a year). I could also work for extra PTO, where if I worked extra hours one week I could save it in a "extra time" bank and use it as future PTO. FAANG - definetely the worse of the 3 so far. It was expected ot be available practically 24/7. I went to that FAANG company because I had heard it was one of the few that you coould have a life, but I never realized that cloud was the exception to that rule. People were respodning to emails late at night, getting on calls late, responding on vacation, etc. THey were cool about taking time off but it felt like if you weren't drinking the kool aid and doing 10x more like verybody else was doing, it wouldnt go well for you. Current - still early to tell but it seems that there isnt as much of a "work late" culture here. People set their own times, some work a bit later but Ive never seen any crazy discussions happen at 11 pm like I did in my last job. A few principal engineers have gone on vacation and not yet have I seen any of them get on a call or message thread to answer any type of question. # Expectiations: Defense - really didnt have much expectations. I practically worked 20 hours, coasted the rest, was my team's scrum master, etc and over excelled in their eyes. There was no real due date on things because contracts in defense last multiple years. I remember when I got there the expectation was to complete the project within my first year. It took 3 years to finish and nobody batted an eye. FAANG - expectations were very high. If you were finishin up with a major task, theyd throw another one at you before you were even done with the first. Seemed even as aJr/mid-level I was expected to lead meetings, always be available, etc. I worked way more at this job than I did at defense and felt like i was underperforming because if I did 8-10 hours, most others did 10-12 hour days. In reviews it seemed like I was compared to my teammates, not so much compared to what the expectation of the job was. Current - again still early. But seems like their expectations are pretty fair. A quote from the first day I like was "if you want to be the person that does 40 hour weeks and gets your job done, you can have a long career here. If you want to be the person that does 50+ hour weeks here for that quicker promotion, you can do that but just respect your work-life balance". # Time and meetings: Defense - hardly had any meetings. We did standup evertday (except fridays) for 30 minutes but it mostly lasted 15 minutes. We hardly went over. I never learned the concept of parking lot until I got to FAANG lol. It was in office so just walking to someone's desk was really just the norm. FAANG - seemed like if your day didnt have 4 hours of meetings, you were underperforming. Everything was a discussion. Parking lot would take an extra hour and most of it was discussing things that I felt didnt really have to take that long. At times some of my tasks were pushed back due to someone wanting to discuss about one simple change. If you had to talk to someone, it was hard to get them on a call and when you did they didnt appreciate their time being wasted. In meetings it seemed everyone was stressed to have the meeting finish. Current - seems nobody is really stressed about meetings. Parking lot items get resolved pretty quickly. Everybody doesn't mind hopping on a call and lasting an hour with you. Edit: someone asked for interview styles. I wont give exact details but ill say more or less how it was. # Interview: Defense: I was a college grad so I got invited to an all day hriing event by the company. It seemed like the interviews didnt ask anything technical, they jsut wanted to get ot know me. At the end of the day they had me list my favorite teams and told me theyd let me know. I've interviewed for other defense companies, tbh there were no leetcode questions or anything like that. Technical questions were more like "what is OOP?" or how I would design a simple code. FAANG - first was a pre-round codesignal style question to see if I knew what I was doing. Once I passed that I went through 2-3 rounds of interviews asking leetcode style questions and then a manager meet. Big tech - similar to faang. Pre-interview exam to make sure I knew what I was doing. Once I passed that it was 2-3 rounds of code/system questions. Edit 2: people asked about TC # TC - Defense: as a college grad in a HCOL state I started at about 78k wiht a 5k bonus. Within 4 years and 1 promotion I was making 90k and yearly bonuses that was around 5k-8k. No stock. I know people who jumped to other defense company and they are around 120k. Promotion seemed like it happened every 2-3 years. - FAANG - I never got promoted in my few years though I doubt I deserved it in their eyes. I never really saw anybody get promoted really. Like one mid level SWE had been working more than most seniors and she didnt get promoted. AS for TC it was about 220k between base stocks and signing bonus. I moved to a low COL state shortly after joining and my base pay dropped by 20k so it ended up being around 200k - Current company - TC is about 200k with just basepay and stock (no signing bonus) but according to them, im promised up to 10% bonus that would bring my total pay to around 215k. # Benefits - Defense: 3 weeks of accrued PTO. But since there was timsheet we technically were not allowed to do overtime. A work around was if I worked 90 hours in a 2 week period, I could use 10 hours and save it in a special bank that I could use later on. So If in a 4 week period I worked 200 hours, I could set 40 hours to that special bank. And if I had a 2week vacation I could use the special bank for the first week and my regular PTO for the second week. It was good benefits outside of that, tuition reimbursement which I used to get my master's degree without taking on more debt. Discounts on personal travel (it wasnt amazing but good enough) etc. - FAANG - Unlimited PTO. Some of the best benefits i've ever seen will probably will ever have. There were multiple different types of reimbursement programs for almost anything. Discount codes on almost any store that were actually pretty good discounts. Similar benefits when it comes to tuition reimbursement, etc. - Big tech - unlimited PTO. Again good benefits, just not as good as FAANG. Company will give random 3 day weekends to employees that they announce pretty early so people have it prepared.