[caymanjim]

I've thought about it many times, but it's hard to walk away from the money. I'd have to start at zero in any other field, and to reach even half the salary in another standard professional career, I'd have to go to school for a few years. If I had any business ideas or an entrepreneurial spirit, I could try to set out on my own, but that's unlikely. In lieu of going insane from the tedium and politics of a software career (not that other careers are any better in this regard), I take a lot of time off; usually about a year every three years. I always go back to software, though, because it's easy. I'm tempted to do something completely different for a quarter of the salary, like become a dive instructor. Beats sitting behind a desk writing the same web app for the 50th time and dealing with sprint planning meetings.