Mid

I've been a SDE in FAANG for almost 5 years, mostly rated Top Tier each year, worked on lots of scope, and left last year due to moral reasons and burning out from ever increasing workloads from Big Tech. I took a large break to heal and moved back in with my parents to reconnect since I moved far away to pursue this role and I figured it would be easy to land a Job near my hometown which is near a big city. BUT its been about 6 months after I started seriously searching and it feels like all of the jobs openings are in Big Tech and I can barely find roles that would I felt would be regular jobs a few years ago. Every small-mid size company has only 1-2 roles open at a time, if at all, and the competition is intense. Every application has hundreds of people applying based on LinkedIn and Indeed. I don't think I qualify or want to push myself to take Senior roles, which have much more openings by far, but for Mid Level roles, I feel like I'm looking a unicorn. Friends who work in non Big Tech jobs tell me how wonderful it is to work in a low stress environment and have coworkers who have been there for decades, while I feel like I'm going crazy just looking for a job. I knew the job search would be bad, but its genuinely horrible and I can't imagine what someone without experience or less experience than what you'd get at FAANG would be going through right now. I'm leveraging use of all resources of networks, cold calling, and the like, but with how dry the market is, every rejection and non offer after long interview sessions hits like a truck. I love this work, am staunchly anti-AI, and don't expect a large paycheck for my next job, but is it so hard of an ask for fulfilling work that I don't have to think about all day and on weekends?? (shout out last employer!!) I landed my FAANG job from an internship and I have no idea if this is the norm or if I've just been privileged. How was the market actually before all of this? I know the pandemic was a hot market for SDE jobs, but its hard to believe given the dichotomy between today's market. The only consistent interview requests I get now are from big tech companies and I'm trying my absolute best to not re-enter the meat grinder for as long as possible. Is there any hope for a healthy job in this economy??