[excto]

I'm an ex CTO. I ran the company as basically 2ic for 5 years before I quit.

Before I quit they offered me profit share which was stupid because profit can easily change.

I do not regret leaving at all from a mental health perspective. I was losing my friends, family and myself.

I do regret leaving because afterwards I'm just a loser developer, lumped in with the guy that moves the button left a bit, when before I was orchestrating tech strategies and winning.

I think I'd have been better off staying as CTO, not because "profit share" was attractive to me, when I had no say in expenses, but because I was good at making a business succesful. Sitting here pushing pixels and spreadsheets sucks.

Every situation is different though. The only lesson I learned was that every job is hard but in different ways. Going back to dev felt demeaning. Watching inexperienced sales people ignoring what matters to people buying services. Trying to have an opinion but being told in no uncertain terms they don't care because I'm a nerd and people don't buy from nerds.

Seriously it's been difficult going backwards. I think I would have been way happier still being in charge.

[vrinsd]

Very possible outcome for OP too.

The weakest part is usually the human factor and the need to bucket someone into a few categories like "rock star" or "loser" or "slightly better than unskilled labor" or "nerd engineer".

Have been in a similar situation and sadly found unless your peers have truly understood what you've done and how, they'll filter your suggestions or insight through whatever bucket they've placed you in.

[subpixel]

Perhaps when you’re willing to trade a prestigious title for some sanity and personal satisfaction you’ve already determined that it doesn’t matter what your peers think or what gets decided.

They key is that you can’t just stop doing what you hate but you have to be able to lean into what gives you some satisfaction.

[vrinsd]

In my experience its's less about caring what people specifically think of you, and more about how you are treated in whatever team you're on.

Example: I made a trade from a key role to a dev role in one job change. In dev role I was working with a technology I had significant experience with in my prior "key" role. In the new role, when the topic came up, I suggested we avoid certain vendors since in my prior role I was responsible for the technology vetting and I determined the chosen vendor was not forthcoming with some important limitations. My feedback (constructively and succintly presented) was completely ignored since I was "just a developer" and I ended up having to make the sub-par technology actually work.

It was frustrating and painful, not because of ego, but going into the task knowing it would suck since the wrong decision was made and now I was the guy having to make broken pieces meet some demanding requirements because "a developer" couldn't possibly know more than an "architect".

[ipaddr]

Save your opinions for your own projects. Let someone pick the wrong vender and pay more. This won't affect your profit share because developers don't get it anyways.

[vrinsd]

Normally I'd agree with you, the exception is if you're the poor "schmuck" that has to deal with the aftermath of said opinions or decisions.

I don't know about other developers & engineers but I've already learned quite a few lessons the hard way and don't need to burn my evenings and weekends knowingly doing something the wrong way.

You might say "That's OK, that's what they're paying you for" but if you've been in this situation, usually someone less knowledgable, bordering on clueless will draft a schedule and you'll be the guy to make it happen. So a bad technical decision turns into a pressure cooker which then turns into more stress. Which is similar to another poster who said (I'm paraphrasing) "each job will suck in different ways".

[ipaddr]

You left previous job because you didn't have enough control but moved into a job with less control.

[ldjkfkdsjnv]

Not sure why this is getting downvoted, its a real experience.