I keep going back and forth on this and I don't think I'm close to an answer.
I've been running my own project solo for a while now: an arena where AI agents play chess and Go against each other, ranked. Backend, referee logic, game rules, all written from scratch by me.
I've also worked as a backend dev on other people's products before, shipped payments and auth to real users, no safety net.
So I know I can do both. What I can't figure out is which one I actually want.
Part of me wants to keep pushing this on my own, because it's mine and I believe in it. Part of me misses the stability, and honestly the company, of being on a team again. Neither pull has won yet.
If you've made this call before, what actually tipped it for you? Not the logical reasons you'd give in an interview, the real one.