> So I just don't see any way this kind of work is going to get done and not kinda suck.

CodeForAmerica has identified the core problems with US project procurement: waterfall projects where all of the detailed requirements are defined before the contract and the programming experts (designers and developers) get involved. The person writing the contract frequently has no idea how the best tech companies organize projects. Also, they frequently pay contracts by hours worked, not by project outcomes.

CFA will coordinate with government departments to put developers+designers in a place to prototype+build a better mousetrap. The problem is that legislators and departments resist giving that autonomy to the developers+designers, so the people developing requirements are just ticking off checkboxes, not actually building an optimal feature for the end-user.

It's not true that consulting companies pay the least. They're not paying like the FAANGs or unicorns but they're higher than working for industry. As an example, at my level I can make ~200k as a consultant but only 150ish as a direct employee. It's crazy because they're willing to pay ~400k for me as a contractor.

When it comes to consulting companies, even if the actual work is terrible (there are exceptions), there will always be people who need the opportunity. Either they are good developers but are just in a hard time and need something to pay the bills (in which case the incompetence of the existing team is an advantage because due to their skills they can get away with doing very little actual work) or they are proper monkeys that will just fraud their way into the industry and then blend right in with the rest of the idiots in there and do the minimum amount of (mediocre) work required to collect their paycheck for the rest of their lives.

Define "good salary". In the DC area, they pay well. We don't have the unicorn FAANG salaries you see in SV or Seattle, but $150k+ isn't uncommon for somebody with a few years under their belt.

The biggest problem I see with them is they tend to throw bodies at the problems. Many junior employees trying to build complex solutions isn't efficient. Even if those junior employees are smart.

Also, not everybody can get hired at a FAANG, sometimes because they're good but not great, sometimes because the FAANG hiring process is terrible, and sometimes because they don't want to live in SV.

> $150k+ isn't uncommon for somebody with a few years under their belt.

I don't think that's much higher than government employees make these days. In DC an engineer "with a few years under their belt" can easily make that at a startup and be working on much more interesting problems for a much less slimy company. There are plenty of jobs outside of FAANG that pay that or better.

The parent isn't wrong, at least in my experience, nobody who is technically competent would take a job at one of those places (and in my experience none of the technical people coming out of them have been competent).

What's with holding Startups up on some pedestole? They can be slimy and most will fail. Working at a well known consultancy company offers not only financial security, but additional insurance, and pension benefits that a startup would not.

It's also not impossible to work in substeams in such a company that mirror startup processes.

A better comparison to FANG are Baine McKinsey and BCG. If you can get an offer at one you can likely get an offer at the other.

The equivalent of Deloitte could be Oracle. Decent brand name for your resume but you’ll be doing lame work.

But do Bain, McKinsey and BCG do the type of large implementations that places like Deloitte, IBM and Accenture do? That is, I thought their technology consulting practices were more along the lines of "We think you should move to the cloud, and here is how." and less of "We're going to build out a large benefits platform for you."

McKinsey and Deloitte are more about accounting and management consulting. I don't think they do many $100M software projects, unlike IBM/Accenture/Atos/Tata.

Let me see if I can address some of this. Trying to be respectful in my response as well.

Source: work for large tech consulting company, don't classify myself as a "good" programmer, just somewhat of one.

"Don't pay very well" - not necessarily true. Comparable to FAANG? Sure, but industry? I'm not as confident. Think of the internal IT group of your favorite retailer, bank, insurance company, whatever. That junior staff doesn't have nearly the income potential a junior consultant does. Not everyone has the opportunity or the "credentials" to get in front of FAANG, NSA, SpaceX, etc.

"Work is generally boring but tedious" - I suppose this is how you define boring. Is working on social security and benefits systems glamorous? Maybe not. Banking infrastructure? IT Governance systems? Payroll? Project planning? Financial management? Reporting? I know people who obsess over some of these systems. People build careers on working with Oracle/ SAP; I'd hope they don't view their own work as boring. I'd rarely describe large scale implementation/ strategy work as tedious. There are some monster projects out there, no doubt, but most projects have well defined guidelines, milestones, etc. In almost all of the companies I've consulted with, our team is moving 3x as fast as the client because usually our projects are scoped as thinly as possible to win bids (cheaper seems to win a lot, unfortunately), and we simply don't have the luxury to work slowly. Time and materials may be an exception to this, but those are not as common as you may think.

"Corporate cultures are not known for attracting top talent" - this is a tough one to answer because I think it depends on how you define "top talent". If you're using undergrad as a benchmark, then sure, big tech consulting firms don't usually pull Harvard or Stanford grads (though they are in our ranks). Consulting work is a balance between being an effective conduit between your client and internal/ outsourced engineering teams. I'd argue a "10x programmer" may not be very effective in a client-facing position discussing strategy, etc. This is not to say the engineer isn't valuable, but let me take another stance: "top talent" programmers want to work on bleeding edge things, and Fortune 500 doesn't have much of that to go around, because it's a risk. I can't tell you the number of clients I've worked with who still use a mainframe with a COBOL developer. Even doing simple things like data interoperability between systems can be a nightmare because enterprise systems may not have native API's, so you end up hacking together these weird FTP-then-scrape type solutions to move data around. Is it the way it should be? No, but you aren't there to rip up their whole ecosystem of tools because you want to use a REST API instead of SOAP.

Regarding your options: 1. Listed earlier, but not everyone is lucky enough to get to interview with FAANG. Speaking from experience, my background didn't get me in the door out of undergrad. 2. Doable, sure. You're a bit location bound here... statistically speaking, most startups are in the Bay Area. Maybe NY too. So if you aren't already in those areas, you're not around a lot of seed companies that you can get in front of. Some folks also may not be willing to take the risk that a startup entails. Would you take $50k + options in a 5 person company versus $100k + bonus from a big company right out of school? Not saying one is right, but there's only a subset of folks that would/ can consider this route. 3. Research/ research-like work. Just a prohibitive as 1 I'd say. It's unfortunate that college is such a "gate" for many of these opportunities. Trying to join a company/ institution that doesn't actively have a presence on your college campus is an uphill battle. Doable, yes, but the odds aren't in your favor. Particularly if you don't know anyone and it's just a cold application.

Would love to continue the conversation. As a closing note - consulting is seen as a great short-term gig. Everyday I get to see how the world's largest companies operate, I can be industry-agnostic, and work in a variety of roles from strategy through execution of IT projects. I would argue a consulting background is an excellent launchpad to the "next" thing, which could very well be any of your three above.

Late to this party, but also does GP think that everyone working in FAANG is doing glamorous work? I did a year in a big 4 and I know that my work, over 4 years later, is still in production at places that my parents and friends buy products from. Meanwhile, I've met people who work on a team to do logistics for a niche product at FAANG. They're talented people, but let's face it, not everyone is working on the cool stuff.

I've worked for both a Big 4 as a tech consultant, as well as a FAANG. They both have their pros and cons.

The first thing is that they really have two completely different cultures that appeal to completely different people. The way I describe it is that the consulting companies are basically an extension of Business School, while FAANG is an extension of Engineering School. The culture at a consultancy is generally a lot more social, with huge, alcohol-filled parties being the norm (if you think FAANG parties are big, B4 parties are twice as big and happen 10x as often). They also put a lot more emphasis on "group work" where the main way of getting tasks done is to get together in a room and work side-by-side while having continuous review and conversation.

If you're a person that likes to often go out to bars, have fancy team dinners at chic restaurants, work in groups, and spend a lot of time building relationships with your coworkers, you probably would like B4. What I just described might sound absolutely horrible to many HNers, but there are many people that really dig that lifestyle.

On the other hand, if you are a stereotypical computer engineer that would rather go home and recharge rather than go to a bar, maybe have a nice company-provided dinner every now and then but not every night, do your best work heads-down without any interruption or talking, and think "work is for work, not for making friends", then you certainly wouldn't like B4 and would probably like FAANG.

As for pay, B4 starts out a bit lower than FAANG but salary at consultancies grows much, much faster. Getting a promotion every 2-3 years is expected, with large salary bumps and large bonuses even in non-promo years. When I left B4 to FAANG, my pay almost doubled, but due to the way B4 pay scales, if I went back to B4 now I would likely make more at B4.

Career progression is also very different at B4 vs FAANG. There is no "Individual Contributor vs Management" track at B4. Everyone starts as an IC, and then slowly starts taking on more management responsibilities. For me personally, I really prefer this because it means I get to be a manager that makes strategic decisions and mentor a team, but also still do "hands on" work as much as I want. FAANG, on the other hand, I have to make a decision whether I want to be an IC (where I will only have some mentorship/manager responsibilities, if any) or Manager (where I will be doing considerably less hands-on work, if any).

And last, tech consulting at the big consultancies can genuinely be fun. You get to hop around to new clients/projects every couple months, working on and learning new types of work. If you do find a type of work you really like, you can specialize in it and stick with it as you please. For some people, switching clients and meeting new teams to work with, being "the expert" in the room, and always running into new problems is fun.

In non tech cities they generally are the best paying.