The main issue for you seems to be you don't live in a major tech hub, or isn't in a remote position from a company built with such values.
There you'll be able to get mentoring and grow faster, but beware... 'passion for craftsmanship' is something you'll rarely see. People working in big tech or companies that move fast they prefer to be pragmatic, and you'll see many bad solutions running in production just because it was faster to ship.
How do I vet companies? I go to work in companies where I know good people work.
Try to engage with your community and see who are the main drivers of progress in your programming language or infrastructure you use, try to work where they work.
Honestly people in tech are so kind that if you just ask whoever inspires you, what companies they believe are doing great work, I bet they'll have alternatives.
Also and not the least, work in a programming language that has a great community looking for progress. Not all communities are like this, some are stuck in the past.
I'm (likely) way older than you and can safely say that you should seize this desire to grow, go for what you want. As it's much harder to jump into a cool company when you are in your 40s if you have nothing impressive in your CV.
As you are still in the beginning of your career, all the doors are open but you need to make sure you are running. Of course, don't quit cold turkey, but make sure you are always moving strategically to build yourself up.
Also, make sure to analyze yourself what you want in life. Not everyone needs to work for Meta, make $1M comp, but have a negative impact on everybody's mental health.
And also nobody needs to grind hard their whole lives, maybe talk to a professional therapist as they can help you understand what you really want in life.
If you ask here on HN people here often work in FAANGs or are founders and are dedicated to the grind, meanwhile they 'achieve' much, it may not be what you want. It's perfectly fine to be content with less need for money or social acceptance. Just by being disciplined you can have a pretty good financial situation while working as a software engineer for a mid-tier company.
It took ~20 years coding and chasing rainbows for me to find this out.
Whether in FAANG or big/small company, or even building your own business I hope you find what you want!
I also encourage you to think carefully about your physical location. Think about proximity to tech jobs, family, quality of life, etc. After 10 years, chances are you may have acquired a spouse, in-laws, mortgage, kids, and friends. It becomes much much harder to move to a new location for career opportunities. So choose while you still have freedom of motion!
If you want my honest to god real world advice:
1) Keep your stable job and don’t hop right now.
2) Why? AI is eating jobs and traditional enterprise companies are a good place to last AWHILE into the end of programming as we know it.
3) I am truly scared of job postings where the company has not pivoted entirely to AI. They sell products that can be reimagined or replaced by AI at the moment, so those jobs are the real ghost jobs. Seriously, all I can think is “how exactly will this company be here in a year, AI can generate a lot of this”.
4) So, stay safe. Stay invested, ride the AI investment thesis up, glide through the end of programming, and exit into the world of basic income/social security into retirement. It’s not a fantasy world out there where you just get to seek out the exact company fit anymore. The economy is being rewritten.
I have always tired to find teams/companies with engineers smarter/more experienced than I am. As long as I work with people I can learn from I have avoided stagnation. This can be true in "tech" or non tech companies. The real challenge is identifying engineers who are worth learning from. As soon as I am not learning and growing, I take it as a sign its time to move on.
Even in established tech companies, most software 'engineering' is tedious grunt work. It's hard to grow copying and pasting YAML files all day.
If you want to build cool stuff, an early startup is really the only place you have a reliable chance of finding that sort of work.
You might have to go to work for the paycheck and find that fulfilment in side projects.
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> How do you vet companies / jobs that have what your looking for in terms of growing your career?
I have a pretty low bar - I will never join a company where tech is a cost center. That is - is the code you are writing generating direct revenue for the company?
If yes, then it's in the company's best interest for the tech to at least be "better"
If not, then they just want to spend as little as possible without making it "good". Ironically, investing into talent and best practices actually makes it cheaper