Key thing, when you quit, don't burn bridges. I took a year off, did some traveling after working at my job for 8 years. At the end of the year, I applied to a few jobs, but my old boss contacted me to rehire me. I went back as if I never left. I am in a different field, so you experience may vary, but if you are in a good team, your old boss is likely to rehire you instead of investing in someone they don't know and have to train.

It was easier for me to get into Google when I had lots of free time for leetcode.

There are 200 resumes in this pile. 199 of them need to go for one reason or another. 'no recent experience' is one of those reasons.

My experience with tech hiring is getting three decent resumes for 5 open positions, everyone qualified gets an interview and serious consideration. It's not that way for junior people in entry level positions and non-IT staff (there the "200 resumes, no reason to interview most of them" scenario often applies), but if we're talking about e.g. mid-level developers, then every decent manager I know is in a "always be hiring" mode.

Old economy jobs in the midwest, sure. I applied to FAANG jobs after a year off and no one even brought it up.

I don't care about this at all, I'd assume you still remember how to do things after a year (or even two.) Of course before it gets to the team it might be filtered elsewhere.