[lucozade]

> but I want to be more than "just" a software developer or sysadmin

It's not clear from what you've written what you offer to prospective employers that suggests that you're capable of a more responsible/critical role. Do you know what you offer that they need? Have you articulated it? How did they react?

For example, your feeling postdoc pressure to be intolerable doesn't suggest to me that you're necessarily prepared for something other than a junior role yet. Of course, I could be completely wrong as I'm basing that on very little. But can you articulate why you believe you're capable of a non-junior role at an employer when you've struggled in a junior role in academia?

I guess another way of saying all this is: have you put yourself in their shoes and seen what you offer to them that others don't have? What is it about you that is sufficiently special that you can skip, say, the first few years of experience and jump into a bigger role? A PhD is nice in that regard, for sure, assuming it has some relevancy. But it isn't a golden ticket.

Source, I don't have a PhD but I employ quite a few.