I am thinking a lot about my career recently, since I am generalist engineer and getting older and older, thinking if I should make strict move to join FAANG company (I may qualify for Google L5, if I can pass their leetcode interview part) or pursue cloud consultant job (fairly qualified in AWS). Tired of being generalist backend engineer who does everything for any company, who are building some type of CRUD app with some business logic before/after retrieving/storing data.<p>Any recommendations?
Working for a FAANG almost guarantees you will see yourself become the villain. But you will make the most money there, and probably have a fairly secure position.<p>A cloud consultant job (not at a FAANG, presumably) allows you to deliver the solution best for your customer, regardless of the source of the services.
I had that option (AWS L7). My answer was to go independent.<p>Having done that, I'd strongly advise people to do the opposite unless they have no choice. There's a LOT of stuff inherent to running a business that doesn't map directly back to the thing you're good at / enjoy doing.