u/illustrious_feijoa wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I agree that level/title is a weird thing to be preoccupied with. But what even is a "top tier" job versus an "average" one? I'm at a FAANG now, and I wouldn't recommend it to some people--so is it actually "top tier" for them? And is that classification helpful?
u/michaelnovati replied · ★ FEATURED
Excellent point! For me, the most important thing is for you to understand the range of options, set a goal, and then work towards that goal - adjusting if needed, and for many people that's not FAANG.
So pre-layoffs, FAANG usually meant literally the 5 companies, or adjacent companies.
These are some of my criteria for what adjacent means:
1. Similar compensation, including stock based compensation as a meaningful portion of an offer
2. Engineering/product driven culture. Meaning that engineers and product managers, designers, etc... have an equal seat at the table as business people.
3. A popular, widely used product. No specific numbers here but a product or service that has significant SCALE and BREADTH where you will learn how to scale something infinitely, and how to build for a variety of people.
4. Reputation for high talent bar. This is fuzzy but generally you'll see "high performers" from canonical FAANG go to these companies.
Top tier is a little more broad and is a superset of FAANG companies and a set of companies that have maybe 3 out of 4 of those criteria above. Most non-public companies valued at $1B+ would be considered top tier at 3 out of 4. The ones that slip are typically number 4 (as the company might not connected to top talent but has made a lot of rushed hires a long the way as they grew) and number 2 (some companies are very business driven but check all of the other boxes, but engineers don't have quite the influence they have at FAANG).
Companies that I generally don't consider "top tier" are banks and credit card companies. They typically don't offer stock compensation and are business driven. Some financial institutions are though: Bloomberg is one of the leading ones, which checks off 2, 3, 4, but doesn't offer stock (even though it has very high cash compensation).