This really speaks to me as someone from an hci background - are there places that index a bit more on "aesthetic taste?" Also would love to speak with you further about your experiences if you have a chance.
Startups, especially the ones that have well designed products since that shows the founding team understands. I remember the early days of Yelp having all these "delightful" experiences such as showing a rocket when you scrolled the page. Corporations like Google are too risk averse and Easter Eggs like that have a lot of red-tape.
Also, this pullback in the labor market is probably a good thing for people who are passionate, as it will hopefully prune alot of the competition who have stellar resumes, but only on paper, that was just there for money.
Apple is great. Heck, even Microsoft. There is this defunct blog about industrial design called Minimally Minimal and the person who wrote that got hired to design the Xbox One. That reflects that Microsoft's talent acquisition team has some sense. Meanwhile, Google gets all philosophical and grandiose about the Material "design system". At the end of the day, it doesn't look good and boring. Netflix was good in the beginning, but I also observed they started hiring those Career Designers and it's been mediocre since. Google's Hardware design was pretty original before, but that was only because those people came from HTC. The new Google hardware is the equivalent of Material. Nowadays, the flat and minimalist design isn't an enlightment but just lazy and unimaginative.