[andrejserafim]

I'm in my mid-30s. And your advice is really what I've come to realize. When I took my last promotion into engineering management, I had ambitions to become the next CTO in this company. But having been in the job for a couple of years, I have come to realize that the CTO role in this specific company would take me into more of the things I enjoy less in my current role.

At the same time, my current role has a neat balance of technical and softer aspects. So why chase the "career" if I'm already in a good place. Focusing on my family and out of work priorities just makes so much more sense.

It's probably the first time, I've rejected a path to a promotion.