I've done both, in my experience at a FAANG you choose your own WLB. If you want to go for a promotion, you're going to have to work a lot. If you want to just get by for a couple years and vest stock, that's an option too. I think people also put a lot of pressure on themselves because it's unclear where the bar is and they don't want to get fired for performance reasons.
At a smaller company there simply isn't that much work to do, nor is there much of a path for promotion (when your boss is the CTO...)
> At a smaller company there simply isn't that much work to do, nor is there much of a path for promotion (when your boss is the CTO...)
Ouch! That’s exactly right. Ultimately I bailed on small/medium companies because of the “boss is the CTO” promotion problem. There’s nothing to grow into at a smaller company. Also, most of them have no technical promotion track for Individual Contributors. You start at Junior Engineer, maybe get promoted to Senior Engineer, and that’s it. No more level ups unless you want to people-manage, which is a whole different skill set.
Contrast that with some place like Google, that has something like 7 or so distinct engineering levels with huge pay bumps and responsibility bumps between each of them! If you are a ladder climber by nature, the smaller company will infuriate you.
At a smaller company there simply isn't that much work to do, nor is there much of a path for promotion (when your boss is the CTO...)