I realized FAANGs are not the holy grail of tech, and that it’s possible to get excellent TC while working on interesting projects with more autonomy and possib

I realized FAANGs are not the holy grail of tech, and that it’s possible to get excellent TC while working on interesting projects with more autonomy and possibly better WLB as well at smaller, faster organizations. Granted, a downside is that most equity is unlikely to be meaningful (except for the lucky), but I found a far more exciting path. Though I could certainly see the appeal in the more innovative arms of some companies (like Alphabet’s X) to do bleeding edge work... I also have ethical issues with spending my existence working for some of them (Facebook is the grimiest offender by far), and the line blurs quite a bit into questionable territory for some of these companies.