[Mezzie]

In my case, I just took a full time non-tech salaried job and used my tech skills to automate my duties or do them more quickly. So I work 20 hours but get paid for 40. My company is results oriented and they don't care; they're generally pleased as pie I have a little extra capacity for when emergencies crop up.

[halkony]

I'd be interested to know what non-tech work you do. I'm unemployed right now for similar reasons as OP (looking for happiness). Does your current job satisfy the "programmers itch"?

[Mezzie]

I work in political communications, but that was an accident. I trained/was planning to do tech work for libraries and academic institutions. (So things like working for JSTOR, ProQuest, LexisNexis, etc.) They're not tech companies, but they do need tech expertise, particularly on the back end.

The nice things about academia are that if you're not on the tenure track, you don't have to spin your wheels trying to publish or perish, you get to meet and talk to a lot of intelligent people outside of your field, and they often have a decent work-life balance. The downsides are that you're not going to be working with the newest tech, people sometimes poo poo what you do/there are a lot of status games, and it's SLOW.

It does not satisfy my programming itch, but I prefer for my tech projects to be on my own time and for play.

[eloff]

The idea has crossed my mind before, so I'm quite interested to find someone doing it. What line of work are you in?

[Mezzie]

I work in political communications, but I trained/planned to work for libraries and academic institutions/companies as a tech person/tech adjacent person. So places like ProQuest, LexisNexus, or being an academic librarian who did research relating to HCI.