| > I hate the work, hate the people, the culture, etc. I’ve encountered massively different cultures at different jobs, I don’t believe there is a single tech culture. > I’ve considered maybe just doing the leetcode circus and trying to land mind numbing FAANG job. Regarding FAANG my experience is entirely second hand and mostly from people at Google. I don’t know how you came to the belief that it’s “mind numbing”. The only conclusion I can draw from everything I’ve heard is that it’s not uniform. Some people have great assignments and great bosses, some crap and crap. Based on these two things, I’m wondering if you really have the breadth of experience to make these generalizations and conclusions, but on the other hand... > I’ve never been a particularly good software developer compared to many of the people I’ve interacted with. That’s not a great sign, you’re reporting not to like dev work and additionally not being particularly great at it. I’m not convinced you have a lack of aptitude, this may very well be a result of lack of interest, regardless that’s a large red flag in my book. The most persuasive bit you’ve said for leaving the industry was disliking the people. For me, one of the best parts about being an engineer is being around people I get along with. In very general terms I believe there is a typical engineer personality; it comes down to the way we think about the world around us, and how we approach problems. If you have some other way to earn a living doing work you like around people you like I’d probably just do that instead; a few years lost to school and some debt seem like a relatively small price to pay. |