[edmundsauto]

Yes, I saved up and lived on my own, doing some things that interested me. I put a little effort into creating a LLC, and took a couple clients (sub $10k contracts). That let me tel FAANG recruiters (truthfully) that I was consulting for that period, thus no resume gap.

I now work at a faang. That said, I don’t think our recruiters would care about a gap. They only care about hiring enough people that are at or raise the bar. In fact, once you’re in the process, I don’t think anyone actually looks at your resume - we base it on signal from the interviews.