I am thinking of switching from L5 SDE to AWS SA. Anybody has similar experience? Will the TC be different (less/more)?
AWS SA is cool but honestly most respected technical role are engineers in amazon.
I switched from L6 role and TC remained same... Generalist SA makes less than SDE at the same level.. but there are categories within SA org and some SA role pays same as SDE... Just check on wiki
I feel bored of doing the same work as SDE which usually contains a lot of operational work and on call headache. I feel the SA role may be better as I will work with different customers which means different ideas and different work and no operational stuff. Also I will be more customer facing understanding more about business. Are my assumptions true?
Yes, WLB is certainly much better.. no pager or on call... Depends on role you may have to travel.. but not more than 25%
SA TC will be less than an SDE. But you will have less stress to deal with.