I will give you the other perspective. I get paid double what I’ve made at startups, for 35 hours a week, no overtime, no on call, and clear expectations of what success looks like for both myself and my team. I get six weeks of PTO (real weeks, not “unlimited”), 4 months off if we have another kid, and significant bonuses, while being fully remote. This is at what you’d call an “enterprise”.

I am happy to keep existing lines of businesses in maintenance mode for the above comp. My work is just work, I find satisfaction outside of it. My comp and work life balance affords me the ability to indulge my curiosity and academic endeavors outside of work while also providing high quality of life to my family.

As a friend once taught me, “Money and wealth are options, and options are freedom.”

Sounds like an outlier? Can you also tell us the actual comp? is that like 500K or 200K? YOE? I mean it's an online forum with unknown identities.

~$220k base, role required 6-8 YOE. Not FAANG comp, but doesn’t need to be.

Is that 35 hour work week the one available in France? That sounds awesome, it allows a nice work/life balance.

US based multinational.

Umm, I do enjoy the things you mentioned (building new stuff, experiment with new tech) but I love doing that on my free time, without pressure, deadlines and bosses.

At work, though, I love: boring stuff I can deal with easily, long epics that end up in features that are barely used (so, no big deal with critical bugs, also no need to be on call). At work I can be done in 4h and call it a day (which gives me TON of free time to experiment with new tech, keep my cv up to date and even fantasize with making my side projects profitable).

I often think about leaving my job for an enterprise role and doing exactly what you describe. After working for years in the professional services space I am confident I could do that job in a few hours per day and spend the rest on other more exciting things.