What I think you're getting at here is that it's up to each person to choose whether they want to chase the promotion and higher pay or whether they want to foc

What I think you're getting at here is that it's up to each person to choose whether they want to chase the promotion and higher pay or whether they want to focus on just doing meaningful work. Perhaps not everyone will come to this cynical of a conclusion for themselves, but in my own experience this way of thinking is almost always a false dichotomy. There's no law that says pay vs meaningfulness of the work is a zero-sum trade-off, but a lot of people giving career advice take it as almost a given that this is true. There is exciting work to do and problems to solve in the higher paying, higher levels in a big company (by that I mean, senior or staff engineer, manager or sr manager. I don't have any hands-on experience at the higher executive levels, I'm still chasing those promotions myself). And there are endless things to be frustrated with at the smallest of startups even when there's no bureaucracy or perceivable "office politics" to worry about. My own takeaway has been, at the end of the day this is still a job. In almost any job I can find positive ways to contribute, opportunities to learn, and make my own self fulfillment. So I might as well do that at the job that pays 3x more. In tech that difference in pay between a couple of bands of promotions or between a startup and big co, can be absolutely massive. Don't feel bad about chasing the higher paying roles, that increase in income can buy you a lot of optionality. Maybe you can retire early, or take long years of sabbatical in the middle of your career, or devote a year or two to starting your own startup in the future without worrying about not taking a paycheck. This may ultimately be a lot more satisfying than shuffling through low-paying jobs searching for roles where you'll be perfectly happy in spite of that, because you may never find it anyway.