This is just more anecdotal evidence but prior to my current job, my prior two roles were in technical consulting, which when I started was an incredible position for both work/life and to a lesser extent compensation. I left the first one because they were starting to tighten things and demanded a return to office(which we didn’t do before the pandemic) and excessively documented timesheets, down to quarter hours. The next was straight up exploitative. The age of a chill tech job is drawing to a close because the tropes have become known to management