Unfortunately this also means you have to be open to a potential 50% cut in TC as well. Personally, I find enjoying the 8+ hours I spend at work each day more

Unfortunately this also means you have to be open to a potential 50% cut in TC as well. Personally, I find enjoying the 8+ hours I spend at work each day more important than raw TC, so have made the tradeoff (and still have a reasonably high TC) which works for me. That said, I would love a more laid back research programming job in academia, but that requires an additional 50% cut from where I am now. It's still understandably frustrating that knowing how to write software seems largely irrelevant to getting a job at a FAANG.