A programmer in high-profile companies - is it possible, and is it necessary?

Question

Programming

The year is 2017, and some companies that started a long time ago have gained huge momentum. Now they are known all over the world. For example: Google, WebMoney, Facebook. From gaming, for example, Valve, RockStar.
Is it possible, and most importantly, is it worth striving to get into such a company? Something tells me that getting into them was much easier at dawn. Now, most likely, very strict requirements for employment (requires a lot of experience) and a lot of competition for places. Is it true that the more developed the company, the more stringent requirements it puts forward? If we take games as an example, they have evolved a lot in 15 years. And if in the 90s it was enough to work with 8-bit games, now it's tons of code in game physical engines. In one of the companies, for a game physics programmer, 3 years of experience in writing game physics is required. Has it always been like this? And can it be that now, new, nascent companies may demand less, but in the future they will reach the same heights?

Answer 1

1. Who is RockStar?
Don't know.
2. In those years when Facebook was just starting ("easy to get into" in your terminology) - there was nothing technically supernatural inside. So there was absolutely no point in getting into it (unless, of course, you have news from the future which babos were cut down at the shares by the very first employees) - there was absolutely no.
3.

If we take games as an example, they have evolved a lot in 15 years. And if in the 90s it was enough to work with 8-bit games, now it's tons of code in game physics engines

But at the same time, the level of developers on average has fallen sharply. Try to make a game on hardware that barely runs the game, as it was in the 1980s and 1990s. There were no engines? I had to figure everything out myself.
And tons of code in modern engines... So what? You don't need to read/write all this code just to use the engine.
4.

In one of the companies, for a game physics programmer, 3 years of experience in writing game physics is required.

Dreaming is not bad.
What is written in job advertisements for most firms is nothing more than a dream. They take not those who are written about in vacancies, but those who can be found.
Only a very well-funded game developer can get a person who specializes in game physics.
5.

And can it be that now, new, nascent companies may demand less, but in the future they will reach the same heights?

Complete full.
Only if you do not have qualifications - there is exactly 0 sense from this, you will simply be kicked out of them when the company grows and you need to solve more complex problems.
6. Strive to get there. Um. Well, this is useful for professional growth. In ALREADY cool firms - yes. There are a lot of qualified colleagues there. You will be picked up quickly.
Moreover, if you work at Yandex for three years, then after Yandex you will be torn off with arms and legs by simpler firms. And for a higher salary than Yandex.

Answer 2

And if in the 90s it was enough to work with 8-bit games, now it's tons of code in game physical engines.

In 2017, it’s probably easy to talk about the easy development of 8-bit games while working on a machine that is thousands of times more productive than those colossus on which doom / wolfenstein and so on were written. This is now a bunch of ready-made engines, but what was then?

Answer 3

It is easier to get into such companies now.
At the dawn of the formation of such companies, the labor process could not be coordinated, the salaries were small (or not at all), there could not be an office. That is, you could get to the right place at the right time, get acquainted with the project and join, or you could not get into it with all your efforts and a lot of experience simply because you passed by and did not know that you could be useful to each other.
Now it is very useful to aspire to such companies at the beginning of a career, since large companies were able to become such not only because of cool programmers, but not least because of the organization of work.
Very, very many companies collapse, unable to survive the growth from 10-50 people to at least 300-500 due to management problems, being not flexible enough to expand.
It will also be useful to get acquainted with the very organization of the work itself, the organization of projects and tools, and a lot of experience of programmers around.
Such companies often recruit many newcomers - thanks to the name, such companies easily allow themselves to organize a large (worldwide competition) and select the best of their best young talents, offering, in general, not such a high salary compared to what is not yet burnt-out young specialists who have not created a family contribute to the company. But the competition is big.
There are not as many key programmers in such companies as it might seem.
It is clear that if you got into a company, turned out to be a really good specialist, grew up, there are growth options around, you can both propose and implement your idea, which is simply impossible to implement in Zamukhrynsk, so yes, the opportunity to do something revolutionary in large companies now higher than alone.
In the future career, experience in such companies is very noticeable. And not only from the perception of girls from HR, but you yourself will understand that in addition to programming, in such companies you have gained experience in a huge number of different nuances that are in demand everywhere.

Answer 4

yes, not to say, part of the next generation got into my Googles, Yandexs and mails, I would not say that they were just super outstanding. they are now probably 26-28 years old about some kind of super colossal experience in time is not worth it, given the fact that they graduated from the university at 22-23