Comments by "Edith" (@Omikoshi78) on "If you're so smart why do you work for Amazon? Principal Engineer Office Hours." video.

Blinking intensifies when asked about why you're working for Amazon. j/k But in all seriousness I've been in FAANG for a while. Back in the day, people who got PIP'ed went over to amazon to restart their career. We all kind of looked down on Amazon at the time because it was viewed as a safety cushion for failed engineers. However, it was right before Amazon's stock really took off. These people that were PIP'ed over to Amazon did well and was promoted to Principal or higher and got a lot of stock over the years. The stock 15x'ed over the past decade! They probably have a higher networth than me even though I was never PIPed! Life is funny like that. So in retrospect I'd say Amazon was a better choice than FAANG for growing wealth. Atleast for the last decade. Easy to see in retrospect but it's hard to discern looking forward.
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It can backfire too. I know many of my colleagues went from a stable FAANG company to a startups like Coinbase and their TC jumped by 80-150k. But now they're laying off engineers and many big tech instituted a hiring freeze. But pre-2022, I agree moving around generally lead to quicker TC bump. But it didn't necessary help with the career in the sense that your role and sphere of influence/responsibility stayed roughly the same according to your skill level. There were other companies that were willing to pay more money for the same skill.
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