Am I being set up for failure? Filling the gap

Question

I started working in a FAANG company about 7 months ago as a software engineer II, and my team of 5 (including the manager who is also a tech lead) is onboarding a feature that requires engaging with other teams. Each person in my team is working with a separate team that does completely different things so we have to work individually in a silo.

Basically this setup:

OP -> teams that managed service A
colleague #1 -> teams that manage service B
colleague #2 -> teams that manage service C
colleague #3 -> teams that manage service D
manager -> knows very little about everything but does his best

I am already struggling with the project I am assigned to because I have to work independently and the Teams that manage service A are not very helpful nor responsive. For example, they see my message on Teams and I can see they saw my message but they don't reply. Last week colleague #3 quit the company abruptly (24h notice) so I and colleague #1 are asked to fill the gap. This means I have to learn about a different giant application and work on the stuff I am currently doing.

Before this job, I used to work in a collaborative environment with a team of 7-10 people who divided work and each project was about 6 months to a year. Am I being set up for failure? How can I help myself? Or is the situation beyond my ability. Working in a FAANG was my dream but I am not sure I like to stay in this environment or whether it's normal.

Answer 1

This sounds a lot like my experience when I worked at a FAANG (emphasis on the one that I worked for; there are 2 of them so it's ambiguous as to which one it was, but I think you can figure it out), and so I would say that it is normal for a FAANG, but not normal in general. The particular one that I worked for is notorious for overworking its employees, often with little guidance, and having very bad internal documentation so it takes forever to do anything unless you have been doing it for a while; the learning curve is upsettingly difficult and the assistance is woefully lacking.

If this was a normal company, I would say it is your manager's responsibility to give you the resources you need to do the job you need to do. That is what it means to manage. You should be able to go to your boss and say, "hey, I know we need to pick up Joe's slack since they left the company, but also I'm swamped with the stuff I'm already doing" and leave it to the boss to figure out the best way to go about figuring out that problem. That said, at this company in particular, I'm not sure if that's a practicable answer without making a really bad impression and possibly getting yourself fired or put on a PIP (as was my experience when I tried something similar at this company).

My advice is, if you're working for the same FAANG I was, is to quit and find a different job, perhaps at a different FAANG, if you want that experience.

EDIT: Addendum after OP confirmed it was the same company: Whether or not you had 24 hours notice that your coworker was leaving, doesn't mean your boss did. When I was terminated from this company (I did not leave by choice, and certainly not 5 days before my stock options would be coming due! Yes, they did that!), my coworkers had no idea what was going on; I was on a PIP for abut a month before I was terminated, so my boss well and truly knew what was going on for a while, although my coworkers did not. Just because you were blindsided by your coworker's departure does not mean in any way that your manager was (and likely means the opposite), so take that into account when planning your next steps.

Answer 2

Your colleague probably couldn't take the pressure of Pivot, the Performance Improvement Plan: she/he either quit altogether, or accepted the package with a few weeks of pay and a clean cut. It's not easy to be fired in the first 12 months, but it happens. Go on Inside and find out the KPIs for your role and level. The only thing that matters is hitting those KPIs. More than any other company in that group, KPIs are fundamental, and come before LPs. You can breach any and all LPs, but your KPIs are the bottom line. New project? Map it against those KPIs. And NO, you are not missing out by leaving that company for another. Your experience is typical.