[eloff]

This is excellent advice. Yes, I think you're right - I know what I have to do. It just hurts to shelve my dreams and play grown-up again. I think it's what's called for right now. Maybe in the future one day I find a co-founder and/or a great startup idea and things change again.

[ianai]

Is there a minimally viable version of it that you could start selling?

From what I read, it sounds way too "in the weeds" to really be a marketable good/service.

Otherwise, kids are rough. I'm not much older than you. I realize probably every day past 30 (give or take) I'm moving slower, and kids can be outright chaos demons. There's also the fact of wanting to be established with a corporation to some extent before you ask for time off to have a kid. There's a HUGE amount of corporate knowledge and wisdom to know, but the minimal is you may be outright unable to take time off during any probationary period at a new job. The probation period could be anywhere from 0 days (unlikely), 90 days (common), to a year (not unheard of). If your "have a kid" deadline is 2 years from now and you probably need to have a decent professional relationship with an employer for a year before having the kid, the time to get hired is in the next year. I think that means it's time to get serious with applying for work as a search can take considerable time. Probably time to get "desperate" about finding work around 9 months from now, as a guestimate?

[idrios]

It's not shelving your dreams, it's training for them. Learn business practices from the company you join, get exposed to new technologies and new sets of problems, learn from the senior and junior devs around you, and meet like-minded people who can help you start your company when you try again.

[eloff]

I like your glass half-full mindset. You're right, of course, I could frame it that way and specifically seek out roles that will help me gain knowledge and experience in the areas that I need them. Also I may meet people, encounter opportunities, etc during the journey.

[jrumbut]

The other glass half full aspect here is that you'll be able to establish a network of people who are or will be CIOs when it's time to launch.

Then you'll have the explaining problem partially solved. "I don't understand it either but I know to listen when ol' @eloff talks about Postgres performance."

[demadog]

Yes this is the way - networks get really powerful in the mid career years (35-50)

[coryrc]

I have dreams. Actually following some of them makes me unhappy.