Do lower tier companies avoid candidates that worked at top tech companies?

This was sometimes the case when the economy was good but definitely not now.

In the "good ol' days", I saw companies purposefully not go after FAANG engineers as they knew couldn't compete on compensation, both with their current TC and the TC they would get when they inevitably got a better, competing offer. It's not fun being a training dummy/negotiating chip, and let's be real: That's what lower tier companies were to FAANG engineers during those times.

However, I have never seen this happen in the current economy. A job is almost always better than no job, so companies everywhere are coming out of the woodwork right now to hire FAANG engineers at bargain prices.

... they know that I would leave when I get an offer from a top company?

Everyone knows that software engineer tenures are short. In the US, the average stint is between 1.5 to 2 years. It's trending downwards too as Gen-Z and millennials tend to have less company loyalty compared to older generations.

If a lower tier company hires a FAANG engineer today, they will probably get at least 1 year out of them given that the market still sucks and interviewing tends to take a long time. That's not a bad deal.

Also, obligatory reminder that company "tiers" are subjective and ultimately not that important. Find an environment that works best for you. Check out this thread to learn more: "What is a Tier-3, Tier-2, or Tier-1 Company?"

I was also laid off from Amazon in April and am still looking. In my experience, I don't find this to be the case because I have been interviewing with both smaller and larger companies. Similarly, I do find it harder to get interviews at smaller companies unless I have a connection and personally reach out in some way. Note that many of the smaller companies I have interviewed for are geographically located near where I live so I believe that might be a factor in them deciding to interview me.

My recommendation is to only worry about the things you can control (I know, it's really hard :/). I'm active on Taro so feel free to message me if you want to discuss how job searching has been since Amazon layoffs. Take care.