Chase Impact, Not Company Names

Depending on your location, the opportunities available differ. One thing is certain however, and that's the constant desire to be joining FAANG or FAANG-adjacent. New grads every day make threads to r/cscareerquestions or, in my case, r/cscareerquestionsoce about getting into Atlassian or Canva (the two big players in Australia). Do a couple leetcodes? Now this results in new grads feeling as if they deserve to be in these companies. The fact of the matter however, is that only a small % will join such companies, and that's okay.

Don't get me wrong, there is obvious name value in having such companies on your resume (to recruiters), and yes, compensation is a big factor too (but I think this only truly apply to US based employees), but saying 'I work(ed) for X FAANG company' says nothing about how good of an engineer you are. Doubly so if your tenure is so little, I would not need to question those who have had 5+ years. Many stick around for ~2 years which is no time to have any impact in large companies.

There is also a stigma towards non-tech companies. But think about this: plenty of non-tech companies also face problems at scale that require solving (Walmart, Ikea, your favourite pizza fast food chain, even banking!).

Person X has 'SWE @ FAANG' in their twitter bio whilst Person Y has 'SWE @ Walmart', it's already assumed that Person X's opinion is more important by the impressionable youngsters, but the reality is that FAANG does have engineers who are doing nothing in terms of impact, and that's what matters: impact.

In the beginning of your career, you want to soak up as much knowledge as you can like a sponge and find your wings. Once you have understanding of how to do things, you can start looking a little higher and begin focusing on discovering real problems that the business faces and presenting a good solution for it (how to get people to like you 101). Doing make-believe system design in a technical interview setting is not going to cut it for designing real systems, you need to get yourself infront of something real and understand why it's designed the way it is, what would you perhaps do different etc.

If you truly want to get into FAANG / FAANG-adjacent, you can always do it later on in your career at a senior level even. It's not game over if you didn't get an offer for a graduate position. Find a company, get a job, any job. Build yourself up, solve problems at a smaller scale your team can offer. Switch teams or companies once you have hit your ceiling. Don't stop growing, keep outputting great work. Be the person that people want to have on their teams.

No one will care what companies you worked for, but they will care for the impact you have made and the person you are.