Unless you have rockstar charisma, genius talent, or essential connections, it takes a long time to climb your way out of the hamster cage at any big company. T

Unless you have rockstar charisma, genius talent, or essential connections, it takes a long time to climb your way out of the hamster cage at any big company. There's a lot of boring work to do at big companies and they're designed around giving it to smart, high-achieving people because those are the people they fill their ranks with. And if you had one of those assets that let you break through more quickly, you probably wouldn't be asking this question on Hacker News. So you can either grind away for another decade or two, expecting that you'll eventually find yourself positioned with agency over something you find meaningful, which will probably happen eventually, or you can choose a path through (or independently with) smaller organizations that probably pay less but are more fulfilling and interesting in the near term.