The current zeitgeist is extremely anti-employee: mass layoffs in a lot of BigTech, and DOGE sadistically slashing federal employee jobs. All of this is meant to send a message that you, an employee, should be more compliant. For some, however (like yourself), the natural reaction is to step back and realize that you don't want that at all. It's an extremely healthy reaction, actually.

Concretely, as I said, I'd look at chiseling time off of your main job to work on other things. This will require a lot of patience (and maybe a job switch to somewhere where that is acceptable). You will probably lose money in the short term.

I'm not the best person to give advice on this, so take that into consideration.

But I think you need to have a fairly decent skill in networking.

I've been slowly building up my skill in networking (randomly approaching people on LinkedIn). It's currently slowly paying off in that I think I will have one friend that is working in FAANG.

I've had 10 conversations so far with people from FAANG (or related). I found most of them okay conversations. However, with this guy, the conversation was genuinely fun and I realized I could consider hanging out with him no matter what his title is.

So why not synergize and look for people that work in prestigious places that I also genuinely enjoy?

Once enough people know you, work will slowly roll in.

That's my strategy moving forward.