That's because FAANG has a hiring department, that's responsible for hiring. They also each have ~2,000 engineering teams, some of which may or may not have headcount. And once someone is accepted, teams with open headcount look at that person, and make an offer.

The shortens the time that it takes to fill headcount, because there is a constant pipeline of ready candidates.

This also means that you won't get yanked around at the eleventh hour of the interview process with a "Sorry, we know you did great on all your interviews, but the headcount for the one team you were interviewing for filled/canceled earlier today, don't let the door hit you on the way out."

You get 1-5 different team offers if you pass the interview. You can speak to the managers of those teams, prior to saying yes. Those managers, if they are any good, should have a pretty good idea of what you'll be doing. If you don't like any of those teams (or their managers), you can tell your recruiter that (I said no to all 5 of my initial offers, and got 2 counter-offers), and they'll come back to you with different interested teams.

Your recruiter gets paid if you get hired. If you don't care what team you get slotted in, they'll slot you into whatever's available first. If you've passed your interviews, but do care what team you're gong to work with, they are financially incentivised to work with you.

Or you could just switch teams after 12 months, if you don't like the one you were hired into.

Sure. I mean, I get the reasoning/justification behind it. But I'm generally not interested in jumping through all of the toxic tech interview process hoops without first knowing what's at the other side; I've learned that lesson the hard way. And I think that probably filters a certain type of talent away from FAANG companies.

What's on the other side is generally above average pay, and access to ~2,000 teams, many of whom are doing very different things, that you can make a lateral transfer to relatively easily.

Yeah and that is what I mean when I say that the company is pushed forward not the work. You're buying in to the idea that you'll be paid well and that you'll probably find something you're interested in. My personal preference is to find something I'm interested in first, and join it. I'm more motivated by the team, work, problem, impact potential, etc..

I work at Google, and it's definitely true that when you're interviewing here, you should be thinking more about the company than a specific team. I mean, ultimately specific teams matter, but transferring is generally pretty easy here, not to mention common.

Can't speak for FANG, but that's certainly not how Apple works.

Leaving aside recruiting events (universities, etc.), candidates are interviewed with a specific role / headcount slot in mind. Sometimes there will be several; it's rude to drag a candidate in multiple times to talk to different teams and so sometimes several will pitch to the same candidate on a given day. But the search always starts with a team or teams that are looking for someone.

That sounds about right. FAANG companies usually need generalists because teams are so big and scopes shift often enough that the ability to pinch hit becomes an important trait. Or if they need specialists, they usually need [company]-flavored specialists, which you can't be if you didn't come from internally.

In my experience the managers usually have a pretty good idea of what work they need filled, but because the hiring pipeline produces generalists, there's some after the fact matching of interest and experience to the available list of projects.

FAANG companies need specialists not generalists. Being large companies, they have groups of people to work on dedicated aspects and technologies. Employees can have a very narrow and specialized focus.

You're both correct! A company like Google hires both generic SWEs, who are hired without a specific project in mind, and super specialized roles like (say) wearable hardware integration engineer, who are hired to fill a very specific niche.

The product they're working on might be super specialized, but oftentimes the skills needed to do the work might not be.

> They just want to hire top talent and figure out what you're working on later

FB reached out to me twice with a specific project and position proposal (SWeng/lead). YMMV

Without getting into specifics, I've had two higher up referrals at FAANG companies, for people asking me to join their specific teams. Both companies are ones who tout the ability to move laterally very easily. Both times, I went through the generic tech hiring process (as in, it had little to do with what I was being asked to do as a member of these teams), and both times, the end result was that I was unable to join the team I was referred to join.