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I know that startups are very often loath to hire ex-Big Tech engineers because of the vastly different working styles, so it seems reasonable that this might be a factor.

my last company was scaling up (~175ppl) and they explicitly look for start up experience on people's resume. I don't think they discounted big tech companies, though.

TL;DR: Yes, most places will take candidate experience into account. Pay, job duties, leveling, and fit are all part of it. Generally if you are applying to places that are not in the rage of where you are at in your last 1-3 jobs, you should touch upon why the company interests you specifically and what your motivation is, eg: Foob.xyz is working on some great challenges in the barkdev space that I've been in for years and enjoy havign an impact in, while also allowing me to expand my technical skillset with catbus and mouseaform")

> I know that startups are very often loath to hire ex-Big Tech engineers because of the vastly different working styles I don’t disagree there might be this bias for a few places, but I can only imagine those logos help you more than hinder you (net).

Thanks, y'all! I've mostly targeted technical startups because I have the impression that big tech companies will only allow remote for those they deem to be exceptional and I'm philosophically opposed to groveling for the ability to work in an environment that works for my disabilities. I also don't feel that I can trust bigger companies to keep their promises on remote work, even for those who are seen as "worthy" of remote work. The interview to which I'm referring was for a job at the Wikimedia Foundation, which interests me because of the opportunity to continue working at scale while benefiting the public good (or at least not primarily enriching shareholders and execs). My salary has fluctuated over the last 1-3 jobs, so I don't even know how to benchmark that. I was at $114k as a contractor for Charter/Spectrum in early 2019. I took a pay cut to $90k (TC was a bit over $100k if RSUs and bonus are considered) and moved from Charlotte, NC to SF for my previous job that I accepted in mid 2019 because it was a chance to get into SRE. After a few years, I got a remote contract job that started out at $80/hr but was converted to a roughly equivalent salary of $166k so the agency wouldn't have to pay OT for on-call work. I could try to sell it as a good thing since I think it shows that I truly value learning and growth above all else.