I'm not the best person to give advice on this, so take that into consideration.

But I think you need to have a fairly decent skill in networking.

I've been slowly building up my skill in networking (randomly approaching people on LinkedIn). It's currently slowly paying off in that I think I will have one friend that is working in FAANG.

I've had 10 conversations so far with people from FAANG (or related). I found most of them okay conversations. However, with this guy, the conversation was genuinely fun and I realized I could consider hanging out with him no matter what his title is.

So why not synergize and look for people that work in prestigious places that I also genuinely enjoy?

Once enough people know you, work will slowly roll in.

That's my strategy moving forward.