I would love to work for a company where I can take a significant pay cut to work 30 or even 35 hours in a typical work week.
I'm sure this is obvious but that would exclude a huge group of people from the outset.
So you either play the overwork game or don't get to play at all. That's all part of the golden handcuffs routine, along with stock holdings etc. Give your life to the company or bugger off, no middle ground.
That's why I wanted to point out that it's entirely reasonable. It's just a different work/life weighting, people should be able to still work in tech and not have an 80/hr week.
In this space, I see that most people don't have what they want, mostly because they're not REALLY willing to make those compromises. I see a lot of people saying these things but they mostly want everything on top of everything else they take for granted.
Contracting has it's own set of challenges and it's distinct from a full-time job. I take on the risk and additional challenges of contracting in order to be able to manage my own time, but it's not for everyone.
I think you're right about compromise too. Working for FANG has become a bit of a social institution and I think some people get into the false assumption that FANG and startups are the only logical options in tech. If you're willing to compromise on location, salary and prestige, you can definitely find tech jobs outside of the various bubbles.