Alternatively, your work is being used to process financial information and trades a few nanoseconds faster, or your work is being used by the military, ...

For a long time I thought that cat videos, HFT, and military tech were the options. I worked HFT for a while. Then I discovered medical technology. You can work on interesting hardware and software for devices that absolutely make the world better. It's great.

Do any companies in the medtech space pay as well as the other options?

In my experience, yes. I get paid a bit better than I would expect at Microsoft and a bit worse than if I went to Apple.

Is this in Silicon Valley? In my area (a southeast tech hub) I’ve seen these type of companies offering jobs in the $100k-$120k range, which is far below Microsoft or any FAANG.

Yes, Silicon Valley.

Naturally, the nature of the 1st to ring the bell (i.e. HFT) poses an interesting concept. It's a very technical goal in itself.

Definitely.

And I don't actually disagree with HFT or finance in general, or sending cat pictures around.

(I'm reserving my judgement on the military.)

Data security!

You can work on defending the masses from the militaries and bad actors of the world.

Also lots of hardware in industrial applications. Though fundamentally you can consider that everything is in indirectly service of cat videos. Even a jet turbine blade casting machine is going to be used to get someone home faster to load up the cats.