i guess its up to what everyone is looking for.

I personally avoid start-ups like the plague. To the point where i dont even bother accepting linkedin requests from startup people

Im not that big of a fan of "Big Tech" either, i wouldnt go for something like FAANG, even if maybe the pay would be good

What gave me a happy life was "industry" firms. In my case those were either consultancy/strategy firms (MBB/Big4 ) at first, which was stressful, but had good advancement chances (jumping steps based on performance) and very good networking opportunities.

Now i've retreated in "an industry". In my case a forbes 100 company in the automotive sector (they have cloud systems and develop software too). And life is bliss.

What's fun about working at startup that is just cloning a bad old Amazon feature? Besides getting to call yourself a "staff+" on Twitter, I mean.

The meteoric title inflation is definitely interesting. I consistently see people who were Analyst level at Fortune 500s getting up to Director of X in a year or two at startups. Seriously makes me question the quality of people at these places if any random analyst is qualified to be a manager of managers.

Well that's definitely subjective but in terms of Pay and WLB I think big tech beats startups generally