Bengaluru Google engineer says ‘day in the life’ videos from big tech companies only show the honeymoon phase: ‘Real game begins after a year’

“Most of the day in the life videos you see on the internet by FAANG engineers are from their honeymoon periods (first 6-12 months). The real game begins after a year, when you start owning projects and outcomes for your team and realise that you don’t get paid to just enjoy,” Agarwal wrote.

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Most of the day in the life videos you see on the internet by FAANG engineers are from their honeymoon periods (first 6-12 months).

The real game begins after a year when you start owning projects and outcomes for your team and realise that you don’t get paid to just enjoy.

— Priyansh Agarwal (@Priyansh_31Dec) September 7, 2025

His post quickly struck a chord with other tech workers. One person admitted, “ye mera ek mahine hi chla sayad, now 90% of time I spend only on my desk working” (Maybe my honeymoon phase lasted just one month, now I spend 90% of my time only at my desk working).

Another joked, “No one’s filming ‘engineer debugging at 2AM’ but that’s the real series.”

Someone else chimed in: “damn thanks. much needed reality check. watching these faangfluencers made me think – how is it shiny throughout?? is everyone so good that impact comes second to doing sponsored posts.”

A fourth user echoed the sentiment, saying they used to be dazzled by these videos. “I used to be so fascinated about these things when they posted like oh they have the coolest office and best food. Now it doesn’t excite me either.”