[GuB-42]

Just do something else then.

A programming YouTuber "bisqwit" has quit his job as a programmer and now drives a bus. Judging by his content, which I highly recommend, he is still passionate about code, he just prefers a day job that requires less thinking.

Closer to me, a friend of mine was a project manager and in his 30s switched to photography (mostly wedding), and he is quite successful, his style is about capturing emotions. He found that the software industry, and office work in general was dehumanizing.

Another friend, again in his 30s took advantage of the fact his company does both software and mechanical engineering to switch from one to the other. Less pay, because of the relative lack of experience, but he is going back up. He preferred to work with tangible things. It is the opposite change from a lot of old devs who switched from traditional engineering to software.

There are thousands of stories like that.

[cbHXBY1D]

I think he took a job as a developer again in 2016. Bisqwit is also in Finland which a) has strong, robust social services and welfare b) not as huge pay gap between public servants and software engineers as the US.