I think there are. Teachers (pretty much as a whole) and public defenders seem to fit here.

I know multiple photographers whose passion is landscapes/nature and only grudgingly supplement that income with weddings/portraits.

"Less pay" generally entails something that's still reasonably lucrative. One could potentially make 20% more at one or two FAANG companies. Frankly, the big difference is in the RSUs. It's not unusual to see $100k/yr RSUs going to a senior engineer at one of them whereas at a startup, the equity is most likely worth nothing.

Basically, startups are a terrible place to work. I wouldn't recommend them to anybody. However, there are some folks, myself included, that love them.

Tech or IT or whatever you call it tends to happen at a glacial pace in structured organizations. Most IT projects fail. Most folks don't care. They want to come to work, do their thing, potentially excel at their thing, go home at the end of the day, and enjoy their life. At a startup, someone that's eager to contribute can really make a difference. One inspired idea has the potential to really move the needle when it comes to the success of the business.

How about: Doctors Without Borders? Docs who enter general practice in underserved areas rather than metropolitan dermatology? Legal pro bono work, or most prosecutors?

Doctors pick specialties and the balance of $, time, stress, location, marvel, and giving back all factor in. Think city dermatologist vs small town pediatrition.

Source: married to an md phd, meaning ~half the potential salary is both forgone and that time is used to be in public labs solving cancer. Hours still stink tho and every day is life and death, so aggrieved programmer discussions of hours, burnout, compensation, and ability to own equity come off sounding similar to how bankers do. Clearly real for those living it, but odd from the outside.

There are a few factors that you are overlooking. A lot of startups (and small companies) aren't on the 'SV Unicorn Track', particularly so for startups focused on 'hard' problems. Energy, biotech, aerospace, etc.. These types of startups often have to cobble together funding from a variety of sources (grants, strategic partnerships/investments, niche VC firms). The pay is lower because it has to be, funding is limited and developing the product (and sometimes just a prototype) can take years, so there is little to no revenue.

Something to consider as well, is that while the salaries might be lower, they are often not that far off from what one would make in their respective industry. So someone working at a biotech startup will probably be making a lot less than a FANNG engineer, but would probably be pretty competitive with their peers in 'BigBiotechCo'.

And the other thing to consider is that engineers, and in particular programmers, tend to be pretty bad negotiators. Its possible that your co-workers would gladly take a 30% raise if they knew they were making that much less. I highly doubt they are 'trust fund kids' (those folks tend to found crappy startups, cause if you are set for life, why would you work for someone else?). And if they are older (as you imply) its also possible they were starting to feel the impacts of ageism in tech, and took a low ball offer as a result. Or perhaps they have saved up enough from previous jobs and just don't care that much if they are maximizing their pay, and are more focused on working on cool things and with non-toxic co-workers!

The most obvious example is academic research. Many engineers, doctors, lawyers, and economists take massive pay cuts to work in an academic environment.

Plenty of lawyers quit Big Law to work in human rights law or as public defenders because they find the work more meaningful. All lawyers are also required to do pro bono work and different lawyers and some treat it as pro forma but many go above and beyond because they feel the work is important.

> I'm not a trust fund kid and grew up dirt poor

This applies equally to me.

Here's the thing -- a job that isn't fun and interesting is a job I can't tolerate regardless of how much it pays. Life is too short to suffer on a daily basis.

But I do have a minimum amount of income that I can tolerate as well. I have to earn enough money to live, after all. How much the minimum is depends on the cost of living in my area.