> I'll give you $500k, top-tier career opportunities, and a resume that opens doors

And he is not going to spend three months grinding leetCode, after working for an unknown company and walk in the door making $500K. He will make significantly more than he is making now admittedly.

And being in BigTech doesn’t guarantee a job or really help on your resume in and of itself after you leave these days. As many people who have been laid off, it won’t even separate you from the noise. Especially if (hypothetical) you, don’t have anything to show for it but you pushed some code maintaining a service.

Again no shade toward the original poster. I was about where he is when I was 40. If you take away my AWS account , I turn into a pumpkin - an enterprise dev with above average soft skills.