> Knowing this is possible, however, I'm not as scared by the job search as I once was, since I know that when I someday decide to look for my next job, I'll know more of the qualities of the places I want to work at.

Knowing what qualities to look for, them still existing, and being able to find them... are 3 different things. :)

Idk if it’s better. I’ve been trying to get into the university.

I taught a class recently. It’s pretty much yours to reign over. It made me never want to go back to corporate drudgery. It’s definitely not for everyone. Even into high schools teachers talk about being bullied by students. I don’t know what it’s like there, but some of it’s probably the schools not supporting the teachers with managing a classroom. Classroom management is really hard ime.

University IT, here. It doesn't pay anything close to what the private sector pays, but I've seen firsthand the good in the community and to society that my university does, and I feel like I'm actually making a difference and an impact. Feels so much less soulless than working enriching a faceless corporation.

Benefits are nice too.

I have the same experience working in the public sector. Doesn't mean I never get burnout, but I honestly can't imagine working in most of the IT industry these days.

The best place I ever worked was a small company, but not so tiny that there was no specialization of roles. We were making a complex hardware/software product that was selling pretty well. There were investors, but it was a long-term kind of thing and there wasn't pressure to double in size every few weeks or whatever Silicon Valley nonsense. I moved away from where the company was, unfortunately or I think I might still be there. They're still there doing what they do and building on it with a lot of the same people as when I worked there, rather than the turmoil du jour in "faster paced" environments.

Out of curiosity: what do you do?

Yep, after layoffs, took a severance break and started a small company with friends. TC is less of course, but your sanity is part of your TC :D.

Checking back in with my friends who I left behind I made the right decision.

That's pretty cool - what do you do, if I may ask?

Data science, specifically contextual data enhancement, small language model evaluation, and helping companies evaluate their use of LLMs. Nearly all unspecialized companies are flying blind with LLMs.

I was in ad tech, specifically media analysis and pipeline evals.

Yeah, thats the dream hut hard to find it seems like.

Very much agreed.

I spent a decade in FAANG, then burned out and left. I’m at an early-stage startup now and couldn’t be happier.

The pressures are very different. My most stressful episodes at this startup have been related to technical problems, where I ultimately feel that I’m in control. My most stressful episodes in FAANG were ones in which I fundamentally had little to no control, but had “accountability” (i.e. blame) for the outcome.

For example, I vividly remember being on a flight to visit my ailing grandmother, and having chest pains from stress due to a parallel team throwing up a red flag weeks before the launch of a years-long project. They were a team of specialists whose work I could not personally do, and I had gotten their sign off on the project months prior. Team members changed, and a new person took issue with a fundamental aspect of the project.

I still believe there was nothing I could have reasonably done differently, as I didn’t have the domain knowledge to get sign-off in this area, and had done my due diligence of engaging the team and getting their sign off. Both my manager and their manager agreed, saying that there was nothing more I could have done, and even going so far as to say that I had been set up to fail.

However, this was of course treated as a significant failure on my part, and was held against me as the reason for lack of promotion. Way up my management chain, people were congratulated for the eventual launch of this project which was bringing in tens of millions in revenue.

That’s about the time I left.

I also consider myself extremely lucky in that regard.

> the key seems to be getting out of the corporate world, away from companies with a singular focus on profit-making and competition

In my experience there are still healthy corporations out there. The signals I now look for are: profitable, privately held, not pursuing IPOs or buyers, grow headcount slowly (if at all), have never needed layoffs, promote engineers into positions of authority, and have high average employee tenure.

It's refreshing to work in an organization where people feel secure enough to make long-term investments in infrastructure, people, and projects that may not pay dividends for many years. (And to be the beneficiary of decades of prior long-term investments.)

Where do you find these places though? That's tricky. They're the real 'unicorns' from my point of view as an employee. I don't care if I earn quite as much if I enjoy my job.

well established companies in an industry where there is not much competition or incentives to make drastic changes fit the bill

That doesn't sound quite like what I'm talking about. That sounds 'cushy', which isn't bad, but doesn't necessarily make for a very interesting job.

All else being equal I agree with focusing on companies that have a long track record of success -- due to the Lindy Effect they're also more likely to be successful in the future.

> in an industry where there is not much competition

This hasn't matched my experience so far. The less external competition there is to align the company, the more employees seem to channel that drive into internal competition for resources and petty office politics.

> Where do you find these places though?

Thinking about the best jobs in my tech career, in one case I made a list of companies that were biking distance from my house, in another an ex-classmate recruited me, in another a recruiter cold-called after I moved to a new state.

Beyond "being lucky" I'm not really sure how to generalize those experiences, though I will say that if you can identify things that you value differently from most that may help you find opportunities that are undervalued.

On the flip side, as I've gotten older I think I've gotten better at recognizing when an organization is a poor fit and having the confidence (and the savings) to turn it down or walk away even if the position is high-status, highly-paid, and/or seems like a perfect fit on paper. That can be especially hard if everyone from your family to your coworkers is telling you you're crazy.