[13years]

The more you succeed in your career the less choices you have because you end up at bigger companies

I discovered this effect as well. I always wanted to move up so I could make more choices about projects and technology. Ironically, as you move up, you get more visible and people want you to come work on their project. You often get reassigned to work you don't enjoy at all because you were really successful at something else probably not even related.

Now, a different factor plagues my mind as I attempt to navigate this world. AI driven technological acceleration is a brand new rat race. Gone is the old monotonous rat race, now replaced with the rat race to remain relevant ahead of the ever accelerating technological curve. It is going to be initially thrilling, immediately followed by burnout of being unable to keep up and constantly being obsolete for anything you create.