Having worked in finance for many years at various types of firms (banks, hedge funds, fintech startups) and hired many FAANG folks, this breakdown from a former FAANG hire put it best:
"At FAANG, there were always more people than work to do. This led to lots of infighting for the best projects.
In finance, there is always more work than people so the fighting is more about trying to make multiple stakeholders happy with limited resources."
Another ex-FAANG colleague called it "cookie licking" since everyone wanted to make sure a cool project was theirs before anyone else took it away.
I can only imagine that this all happened due to the economic effects of being monopolies and therefore being able to just hire all of the best talent without necessarily having something for that talent to do.
> In finance, there is always more work than people
It would seem the general theme is: If the work is "cool" or "new", there isn't much of it to go around. If it is "legacy" or "profitable", no one wants to be in the same building as it.
It's also that companies won't pay more for the work no one wants.
And elite companies won't hire less "brilliant" but worth ethical to do the boring work. During the fat times, they paid people too much for work they hate that wastes their talent. Google is full of PhD scientists maintaining CRUD apps.
"At FAANG, there were always more people than work to do. This led to lots of infighting for the best projects.
In finance, there is always more work than people so the fighting is more about trying to make multiple stakeholders happy with limited resources."
Another ex-FAANG colleague called it "cookie licking" since everyone wanted to make sure a cool project was theirs before anyone else took it away.
I can only imagine that this all happened due to the economic effects of being monopolies and therefore being able to just hire all of the best talent without necessarily having something for that talent to do.