Beware of a false dichotomy, how about pursuing two prongs in parallel and see what works out best/first:
1) Brush up on skills, algorithms, data structures, leetcode, interviewing, etc, and maybe you'll end up with a high paying code monkey # 478758 at FAANG.
2) Provide more value to your employer, take on more important, strategic projects and tasks, and get further raises, promotions, become a manager of some juniors, etc.
This might mean you have to:
* work on-site if that's what they want / prefer.
* become involved in interviewing people, hiring, eventually managing junior folks.
* find a way to do more main product / web page work, if that's what the company's product / core business is.
* say no to more and more reports, ask for someone junior to hand off to, automate, offload, provide self-service tools, etc.
* build connections with non-tech people as well as tech people, probably onsite whenever possible.
* watch out for the trap of being grumpy about your situation, you are not a victim. if you want the responsibilities and big $$$, you have to be to showing that you are ready and interested, and not waiting around, working remotely, doing the same stuff year over year, in a comfort zone.
On trying to join a FAANG: I'm not sure if they're interested in 40-something year olds that have only been coders and haven't even been team leads.
Working on site is not really an option as it's in a different country, and I just had a daughter with my girlfriend, who has a job and doesn't speak English.
> watch out for the trap of being grumpy about your situation, you are not a victim. if you want the responsibilities and big $$$, you have to be to showing that you are ready and interested, and not waiting around, working remotely, doing the same stuff year over year, in a comfort zone.
Yes I'm fully aware of this. But I've been showing readiness and interest for 11 years of working my ass off, didn't take me nowhere (other than big salary increases, which sure were welcome). I have no reason to believe anything will change.
1) Brush up on skills, algorithms, data structures, leetcode, interviewing, etc, and maybe you'll end up with a high paying code monkey # 478758 at FAANG.
2) Provide more value to your employer, take on more important, strategic projects and tasks, and get further raises, promotions, become a manager of some juniors, etc.
This might mean you have to:
* work on-site if that's what they want / prefer.
* become involved in interviewing people, hiring, eventually managing junior folks.
* find a way to do more main product / web page work, if that's what the company's product / core business is.
* say no to more and more reports, ask for someone junior to hand off to, automate, offload, provide self-service tools, etc.
* build connections with non-tech people as well as tech people, probably onsite whenever possible.
* watch out for the trap of being grumpy about your situation, you are not a victim. if you want the responsibilities and big $$$, you have to be to showing that you are ready and interested, and not waiting around, working remotely, doing the same stuff year over year, in a comfort zone.