From my experience it isn't companies like Google or Microsoft running these tech sweatshops. Large prestigious companies generally have great work life balance and take care of their employees. It's the bottom tier ones who get away with hiring desperate talent and exploit them.
I will say - people here are not chronically underpaid. It depends a lot on how the stock is doing but a lot of people here are from pre-IPO. So, it's not uncommon for people to have a 7-figure TC. The company basically 50x'd its valuation in <3 years. So, even if you got a kinda not-so-great amount of stock back when you joined, you still are getting a ton of money.
For newer candidates such as myself who joined post-IPO, the pay is definitely nowhere near competitive for the level of effort. I'm making a good amount but I'd say it's closer to average-slightly-below for FAANG but it's also my first big name. I didn't have a competing offer to push that could push them to the top of the band or into the next level. My offer was for about $360K recurring TC (I have ~8years of xp). Now, it's worth like $330K because the market went down so hard but just a month ago... It was $450K. So, the stock is very tumultuous and frustrating to deal with. I wish I had joined a Google or something because my last company IPO'd but the stock tanked 75% since IPO. I've held the entire time and am wondering if this shit is gonna be a penny-stock now. I went from thinking I could buy a home in the next year or two to "well, I'm fucking nowhere and I spent nearly $100k on those options. FML."
A lot of my peers have been here before IPO and are putting up with the shit because they make so much money. A lot of people here are making crazy money even if they joined just a month before IPO because it 3x+ just before they listed. The people who are post-IPO (like myself) tend to put up with it because it's their first big name - although blind leads me to believe a lot of people quit... Just not from my immediate team. We'll see. I'm surprised no one has left on my team in the 6 months I've been here.
