I'm doing this for the love of it. I never meant to make it a career, originally; I just spent so much time at it when I was young that it became a career, whether I liked it or not. I've never sought to maximize my compensation; I just need to get paid enough that I can comfortably keep doing the work, because the work is what I want to do.

Yes, I have a family and a mortgage and bills, blah blah blah. All this is adaptable.

Lest you simply dismiss me, I will say that I have worked at two FAANG companies and another tech giant which was larger than any of them; but my ambition is measured in terms of technical impact, not money.