I recently started working as a QE/SDET at a FAANG company after graduating in May. While the compensation and team culture is good, I'm afraid it will pidgeonhole me and stunt my career development.

I've been trying to plan out how I'm going to tackle a career switch. I've kind of narrowed down my options, but I have no idea which is realistically the best one. Here is what I got:

• Work at current company for a year or two, then attempt to transfer internally. I've heard this is quite difficult at my company though.

• Work at current company for a year or two, then start applying elsewhere. I'm mostly worried about this because my experience will mostly be in QE/Tools, and that companies will not want to interview me for the positions I am interested in. There's also not many roles that require less than 2-3 years experience in development in a professional setting.

• Apply for new graduate positions now as if I didn't have a job. I was looking for another position before I started, but nothing really panned out, especially as hiring has only really started for most companies the past week or two. I'm also afraid it will look sketchy to my manager/coworkers if I constantly take days off for no good reason. I've also experienced a certain degree of gatekeeping from certain companies since I already graduated.

It sounds entitled, but I really refuse to settle for a mediocre company, as I have a decent degree of confidence in my skills, intelligence, and leetcoding ability, as well as a computer science degree from a very good school. If possible, I'd want to pivot as soon as possible.

I was wondering if anyone else has any advice on what they would do in my situation. Thanks!