Can I claim Ex-FAANG if I was a contractor at Amazon?
Lerner et al recently found that "[in resume evaluations] there were some characteristics that recruiters consistently favored: experience at a top-tier tech company..." [source]
I worked at Amazon as a contractor. In my resume, this is clearly labeled as contract work. In social media bios, title lines, and so on, should I claim Ex-FAANG?
Discussion
(3 comments)- 2
16 days agoStaff Eng @ Google, Ex-Meta SWE, Ex-Amazon SDM/SDEWhat are you trying to achieve? Getting attention on LinkedIn? Getting your resume through an initial pass at a future employer?
Amazon wouldn’t tell them you were an employee. Amazon doesn’t (as far as I know) directly contract, so you didn’t have a contract with them. You worked for an outside firm, and that firm had a contract with Amazon. Amazon didn’t pay you. In terms of experience, it is great if you were embedded with an Amazon team and were able to learn from there. If you delivered significant work on your own, that can speak for itself when discussing it or on your resume. I would still be cautious about indicating you worked there.
I obviously am coming at this from an angle where I have past and current employment at “FAANG”, which is a privilege and makes it harder to like… say who or who not should claim this.
Saying what’s true, that you were assigned to an Amazon contract and delivered X, seems absolutely fair and correct. Otherwise it feels like a risk of misleading. I guess it’s a trade off between the benefit of those you successfully mislead, or are fine with this representation, versus the detriment of those that find the claim disingenuous. The harm of the latter seems significantly greater than the benefit of the former, but perhaps only on an individual basis, and in aggregate you think it’s a net win.
- 015 days agoSenior Software Engineer [OP]Upstart
Getting attention on LinkedIn? Getting your resume through an initial pass at a future employer?
Yep, both of these. Thanks for the answer! No interest in misleading here.
- 115 days agoTech Lead/Manager at Meta, Pinterest, Kosei
The spirit of saying ex-FAANG is that you understand the culture, people, and processes that have made these Big Tech companies so successful.
Do you feel like you were able to do that at Amazon? If so, I think it's totally fine to say that you're ex-Amazon or ex-FAANG. I'd make clear in the resume/LinkedIn description that you were a contractor (sounds like you're already doing this).
- If you were deeply embedded on a team working with full-time employees at Amazon, and you had some visibility into the roadmap, that's a good argument for being a core part of the team.
- If you were working in a corner without any true interaction with company employees or leadership, I'd be more hesitant to claim the Amazon affiliation, since this will become clear when people ask what you did.
Here are thoughts from me and Alex about whether FAANG contracting is worthwhile or not.
