I'm in much the same situation you were. When I got hired on I figured I'd probably stick it out for 5 years or so (the money was good and I guess I was a little less pessimistic in my outlook on the world at that point.) But with the covid stuff I don't think even if I wanted to stay past the end of this year they'd let me (currently they're requiring testing to come into the office or any company events if you're unvaccinated/undisclosed, and starting next year they're adding a surcharge to the healthcare for that testing. I'm pretty sure you have to pay the surcharge even if given a WFH exemption, so that's the essentially the absolute limit for me.)
Fortunately I think have some options for keeping enough cashflow to cover the essentials, so hopefully once that settles I'll be able to work toward what I want to be doing, and not have to worry about coming up with enough money to live.
I'm in much the same situation you were. When I got hired on I figured I'd probably stick it out for 5 years or so (the money was good and I guess I was a little less pessimistic in my outlook on the world at that point.) But with the covid stuff I don't think even if I wanted to stay past the end of this year they'd let me (currently they're requiring testing to come into the office or any company events if you're unvaccinated/undisclosed, and starting next year they're adding a surcharge to the healthcare for that testing. I'm pretty sure you have to pay the surcharge even if given a WFH exemption, so that's the essentially the absolute limit for me.)
Fortunately I think have some options for keeping enough cashflow to cover the essentials, so hopefully once that settles I'll be able to work toward what I want to be doing, and not have to worry about coming up with enough money to live.