This feels like the author simply went for the entirely wrong jobs. It sounds like what he wants is to make decisions, and those you can only make in small team

This feels like the author simply went for the entirely wrong jobs. It sounds like what he wants is to make decisions, and those you can only make in small teams, small companies, and in lead positions. Going for any sort of FAANG or corporate job is the opposite of this - and that is not specific to programming jobs in any way. Nobody is 'free to just improve the world' in a large group.