I considered it once, because of piper, blaze and a bunch of interesting sounding engineer culture. Not really the salary or perks.

But it sounded like a massive bureaucracy, and a little like a cult, so I avoided it, and I’m glad I did.

"it sounded like a massive bureaucracy"

Thats pretty much any large, or even medium companies, right?

Honestly, while some bureaucracy is inevitable, how oppressive it is can vary a lot. The last large multinational corp I worked for had a fairly horrific amount of it. The one I work for now (roughly the same size) has a tolerable amount of it.

It varies a lot from team to team in my company.

That makes sense. One of the jobs of team leaders and middle managers is to shield the team from as much BS as possible. Some people will be better, and some worse, at doing that.

Most of it here is a difference in the tech used and the nature of the business problem.

I think most companies as they grow will have people who are about to be redundant and then create layers of paperwork that need to be filled solely to justify their raison d'être.

"You literally couldn't pay me enough to work for a FAANG company,"

I'd do a lot of unpleasant things if the price was right.

So would I!

I suppose that I shouldn't have said "literally" there. If a FAANG company were to offer me a million dollars for a day's work, and I only had to work for a single day, I'd be in.

But I know my own temperament, and enough people who work at various FAANGS, to know that if I had to work there for more than a couple of months, I would be utterly miserable regardless of the pay rate. I have worked at large international tech companies, and that's been fine, though.

I'm utterly miserable at my job. I'd rather be miserable and making big money than miserable and making less than the nation median for devs.

Well, sure, if the choice is between two miserable jobs, I'd take the better paying one. But I'd only do it temporarily while looking for a better job even if in another line of work entirely.

At this point, I don't think a better job or industry is out there. Retirement is my goal.