[CyberFonic]

I was burnt out as a programmer a long time ago. Using my IT knowledge I moved into the field of business analysis and then on to project management. After a while I got tired of the politics so I switched to working as a network / operations engineer. More recently I went back to university to do post-grad research in model based software engineering and now freelancing as a consultant / project manager.

I have never felt that I had to stay stuck doing something that I no longer enjoyed. For me learning new material (and enterprise scale networks was a big challenge) and facing new challenges has always been more inspiring than merely picking up a fat wage. The biggest problem being that, for most people, their spending increases faster than their income. Exercising a small bit of restraint and having some savings opens up so many great opportunities and adventures.

I can understand the fear of starting from zero. But that doesn't need to be the case. What I have always done is to focus more on domain knowledge and then segueing from one area to a adjoining one. Technical knowledge, alone, quickly becomes outdated. But domain knowledge continues across multiple generations of technology.