I worked at a FAANG-adjacent company for a ~year and was also woefully unprepared for the politics. Definitely not as bad an experience as OP, but it still took me by surprise at how cutthroat/scheming the average employee is at these top companies. Lots of empire building for headcount.
It also made me realize that the most successful engineers are ones who can market themselves well even for the most mundane of tasks, something I'm not great at and find exhausting. Every task/project was basically "how would this look in my performance packet?" otherwise it wasn't worth doing.
It also made me realize that the most successful engineers are ones who can market themselves well even for the most mundane of tasks, something I'm not great at and find exhausting. Every task/project was basically "how would this look in my performance packet?" otherwise it wasn't worth doing.