Let’s be clear, though, FAANG (as someone who has spent an awful lot of my life working at FAANG) was pays well but crushes your soul. There was a time, a very long time ago, where it didn’t, and there are the soulless soul crushers that love it there, but I would rather futz around with a mid range cars worth of hardware and be happy than spend a moment longer prostituting my soul for their money.
There was a time in this industry that it paid about as well as an accountant and people did it because they loved what they did. Then the money flooded in, a bunch of people switched majors from business to CS, washed out in industry, got their MBA, and became product managers and engineering managers and sucked all joy from it. God bless those that find that joy again.
