Earlier quoted context omitted.
At some point if I transition to FAANG/something closer to my ideal, I'd definitely like to grind so I doubt I would have time for much outside of work. If you want to make that transition, you're gonna be competing with people who work hard from day 1, and not just when it's time to make the jump to FAANG. It's really hard to beat people who put in the time for their craft, in the long-run You don't have to work at…
I have no faith that the extra 15 hours of grind is worth anything. Let's compare for example: 55h/week job because time sucked up by lengthy meetings and status reports. 40h/week job then spend 15h/w spare time learning algorithms and design interviews.
I was going to say this as well. If you haven't done competitive interviews, it's easy to underestimate how much prep / skill is required.