[godot]

I didn't go to grad school and can't relate to your situation, but sounds like your best bet right now is: 1) Find the path to finish your degree asap (you already spent a number of years on it, shouldn't throw it away), then 2) land a job in a place like Google and make some good money.

It sounds shallow, but having a lot of money rolling in to your bank account on a regular basis for the first time of your life will do a lot to you on a psychological level. You'll need that boost in both the emotional and materialistic sides. After a year or so of that, you have more options and can think about life or building cool stuff a little more.

The one thing I can relate to you on is feeling wiped at the end of the day. I worked in a startup-turned-unicorn a number of years ago. The first couple of years was extremely fun and exciting. A few years in, the company IPO'd, and work gradually became incredibly draining and boring. The worst part is, I had all these ideas about cool things I wanted to work on, but was too drained to work on them. I left that company after a few years and have been through founding a startup, failing and back to a regular employee developer since then. Through these years I have never lost passion and energy since. I guess the point of that anecdote is that I know how it feels being wiped at the end of the day, but I had financial security to allow me to leave it and start over. You'll want to get to financial security first.

[tmoot]

I feel totally undervalued financially and intellectually in acadamia.

I'm was considering calling this a sunk cost and moving on but based on the comments here, I think I'll stick it out and try to develop on the side.

This is the first time I've really lost interest in my work. It's really hard to work on something you don't care about.

And other career or life advice?

Thanks for the words.