I'm not sure that's really an issue in the era of remote work. The word on the street is that it's hard to find a SWE job these days. There's also a lot of talk

I'm not sure that's really an issue in the era of remote work. The word on the street is that it's hard to find a SWE job these days. There's also a lot of talk about RTO (return to office). The two are not necessarily correlated industry-wide, though it may appear that way. If it's really that it's hard to find a SWE job, remote or no, then I wouldn't worry about professional reputation. I'm not sure that you can make an impact/gain real seniority without both impressing and pissing off people.