FAANG is dead. Better options in 2023 for developers (Time Off Focus)

When choosing a job, one of the major considerations is paid leave and vacation, commonly referred to as Paid Time Off (PTO).

Note this article continues from the compensation focus article of this series.

Many of the FAANG and top tech companies have 20+ days of PTO each year. Some carry over from year to year, others you have to use, otherwise you lose it. Netflix has the most PTO, as they give unlimited PTO. While hedge funds like Citadel have the worst, with only 15 days. After several years working at AirBnB they allow employees the option of paid sabbatical. (PTO information is pulled from public information on Glassdoor). In general FAANG, non FAANG top tech and finance all seem to be on par with each other in this regard, except for Netflix and Citadel, which are on the extremes for the data set.

Another gotcha to look out for is unlimited PTO. Many companies will offer unlimited PTO. Employees are drawn to this but don’t realize that unlimited PTO might mean no PTO. Make sure there is a required minimum PTO. The standard I’ve seen is 15 days. If there is no minimum then there is no forcing function for people to take off. If there is nothing forcing a person to take PTO then the deadlines and pressure to perform and be seen as a hard worker tends to incentivize people to keep working and not take time off. To combat this many companies expire PTO at the end of the year. Which allows hard workers the ability to take PTO guilt free, because they can justify taking the PTO instead of losing it.

The number of paid holidays a company offers should be another consideration. Companies in banking tend to be on the higher end of this (google bank holidays for more), companies in physical goods and manufacturing tend to have fewer paid holidays.

It is worth noting that health benefits, 401K match and other benefits should be considered but tend to matter less than compensation and PTO so they will not be examined in this series.