[michaelbuckbee]

Respectfully there are two separate things here:

1. The notion that 'coding' is exactly what you're doing now.

I think that doing actual development varies far more widely between roles, company sizes and verticals than in other careers.

As an example: in my programming career I've done everything from work with Navy SEALS (handheld athletic training software) to attend rock festivals (making sure scheduling software stays up and working) to some AR.

I have a friend that makes robotic control software for nuclear plants and flies around the world collecting stories of people who have seriously messed things up. Another friend works at a big bank as one of a floor full of people doing something insanely boring with credit cards. They both seem happy. They both are developers. Their lives could not be more different.

Coding doesn't have to mean 40hrs a week in a windowless office and all of those roles varied between 20% to 60% coding (at a rough estimate) and if you've only ever worked in a large company it's crazy how different building even building your own apps/services can even be.

2. Switching careers.

I've always really liked Scott Adams career advice to try and be the top 25% of two different subject areas:

http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/07/care...

Being a developer is a great '1st skill' because it mixes so well with nearly everything else in today's society. So, I'd say don't abandon it (or your knowledge) but try to pair it with something you find more interesting.

[Throwaway123212]

Sensible advice. All the positions I've held have been specialized enough that all I do is write code. There are designers, managers et al being paid to do the other half. I believe there are other opportunities where that's not the case, I went out of my way to look for them during my last job hunt but come up empty. I had no problems finding a bunch of codemonkey-SWE jobs. Seems to me that programmers are fairly specialized and replaceable in most orgs.

I'm not opposed to another technical position. Something that leverages my skills to do something more dynamic would be great.

[michaelbuckbee]

I think much of it functions around how small the team is: if you're in a larger org you're likely to be more specialized. My own career has been spent in smaller orgs where I've had a much greater say in how I do things and the types of work I'd like to do.