Yeah, you're getting a lot of pushback from the corporate drones on here, but you 100% made the right call. If you want to be a part of the FAANG hive mind, you have to be willing to jump through a bunch of hoops. The job itself is mostly just cranking out/maintaining a bunch of boring backend plumbing for boring stuff, with little to no correlation between the value you bring to the company and your compensation. Saved the company a million bucks a year? "Great, here's a $25,000 bonus." Saved the company a million bucks a year, but your VP lost a fight with another VP? "You're just not a team player, no bonus this year"
Yeah, but basically anyone at a FAANG company who landed in any other non-FAANG company would be able to singlehandedly revolutionize the tech at that company.
Those same skills that let you plug Machine Learning Library A into Tracking Database B could make things that vastly increase productivity for a bunch of regular people, and if you're doing it for yourself or a small enough shop, it could actually pay off.
