[memset]

I think you may benefit from thinking more concretely about what you want to do. It is one thing to say "not-programming" - which is very broad, so broad that it is not terribly helpful - and quite another to say "I'd like to make a living as a jazz musician" or "a biology researcher" or any number of other things. Start there: what do you want to run towards, rather than what you are running away from.

Second, there are many possible career paths which are adjacent to programming, and which would use your technical skills, but not as part of your day-to-day. This could be project management, product management, technical writing, or even engineering people management. As before, if you have an idea of a specific function in your organization that you would find interesting, and which would make use of your talents as a programmer, then this may be an easier route than starting from scratch.

When it comes to any of these functions, my advice would be to: (1) Find small ways to demonstrate your interest in aptitude for those skills. For example, work with your product manager to write a product brief ("Hey, can I take a crack at it and ask for your feedback? I'd love to learn how to do this kind of thing.") And, (2) if you are able, express to your current manager that you'd be interested in learning additional skills and possibly making a - deliberate, smooth - career transition.

If you pursue a degree - be it in business, or any other field - realize that you would likely be competing for jobs with others who have 10 years of experience in the field, rather than new college hires. This is not an impossible thing! But this does require a strong narrative, and your ability to articulate why you made a career change and what specifically you can offer based on your previous work experience in the unrelated field.

My overall point would be to really take some time to sketch out what you would want to do (in the affirmative), why it is interesting to you, and how specifically (not in a hand-wavy sense, but "here is a specific task that I could do more effectively and here is why") your current skills would have a multiplier effect on your new path.

Best of luck to you!

[perl4ever]

"(2) if you are able, express to your current manager that you'd be interested in learning additional skills and possibly making a - deliberate, smooth - career transition."

Based on my experience, that is unlikely to work. If you are not in an entry-level job, then your employer/supervisor, if reasonably intelligent and competent, will recognize that you're far more valuable doing what you've always done. So they may be nice to you, but they will resist. It's the flip side of the Peter Principle.

I think it's a better approach to get an entry-level job in the field/organization you want to transition to and then expand your job with the stuff you want to be doing.

[foobarchu]

Not necessarily. I would argue that any reasonable intelligent and competent employer/supervisor would recognize that an unhappy employee is going to provide diminishing returns over time, and the employer would be better served helping them explore related opportunities in the company. I've seen programs to help employees do exactly this at every place I've worked.

The only cases where I think it would usually be a problem are if your end goal is not with the company, or if the end result is seen as a going down the ladder (example: QA personnel moving into development is a positive move, but developers becoming a tester is often seen as a negative move)

[yesenadam]

>quite another to say "I'd like to make a living as a jazz musician"

Yes, quite another. Not recommended. (Source: I'm a jazz musician.) The musician part is wonderful, the make a living part, not so much. Jazz musicians mostly teach to make a living. Well, there are much worse ways to make a living than teaching people what you know about.

[memset]

Haha, I used that example because I myself aspire to become a better jazz musician. I play the saxophone and, shameless plug, sell notebooks (themusiciansnotebook.com)