[MyShawdowySelf]

I worked at FAANG andhave burned out, and i know alot of friends who also have... with varying degree of severity.

I would say pretty frequent. I am not sure if the incidence of burn-out is higher for software engineer vs other profession. Anecdotally, both academia and entrepreneurship seems to also have a very high incidence of burn out.

My guess is that the mix of a highly competitive field, mixed with poorly defined evaluation metrics mixed with skewed(winner-take-most/all) reward system does create a lot performance anxiety and psychological pressure.

I have never worked at a smaller company, but i am not sure it's any better for the majority of people. You just get paid less for your troubles.

I don't think the size of the company truly matters. I think it's a proxy for one's position in the importance hierarchy within the companies. The higher one is, the higher one can command/shape its experience to include things like autonomic, interesting work, respect etc... etc... And those factor influence more the burn out situation