Things like this brought me into computers, but along the way I fell for the easy and boring life of glueing libraries, endpoints and corporate bullshit that leads to burnout.
Perhaps some day...
I think make the move gradually - find the stuff you were excited in originally, that you would love to learn more about and eventually do. Spend maybe a few hours a week diving into it - then gradually increase and move away from your current job.
I see a lot of my friends making more money than me doing stuff like that but I followed my interests and went into robotics first chance I got and do not regret it. There is nothing like the feeling you get seeing your code really interact with the world, at least speaking for myself.
My problem is I'm so burnt out from the aforementioned stuff I don't have the motivation or energy for the cool stuff anymore. I feel like I need a year long sabbatical first, but reality says otherwise.
If you can afford it (time/family/financially) I would say to do it. Even if it’s only 6 months. You can learn a LOT in 6-12 months if you’re disciplined and focused. Don’t forget to build up a network in any new endeavor you take, it will save you time, give you inspiration, and help get a job later on, and maybe you can help them along the way as well.
Same here, this has been the central crisis of my working adult life for 25 years. Unfortunately it never gets better. And I've taken 6 months to 1 year off for severe burnout with physical symptoms like adrenal fatigue twice now.
My feeling is that this problem is intractable alone. We need groups working towards liberation, and societal change to support healthy work/life balance.
What that looks like in practice is that wealthy people, especially those who won the internet lottery, should start giving something back. At the most basic level, that's paying one's taxes. Beyond that, they should start setting aside ego-based goals and start accepting requests outside of their attention so that the most pressing problems facing humanity can finally get solved.
Give a billionaire $1 billion and a year later they'll turn it into $2 billion. Give one of us $1 billion and a year later a form of cancer will be cured. That's why they have the money and we don't, and why it takes so long for things to get better, if they ever do.
Make that day today! I’ve realised this same problem too, sure there’s some beauty in an ultra tight gluing of logic … but there’s a vast unexplored sea of programming beauty waiting to be discovered. I realised this over the weekend, so I’m diving into graphics programming.
Go for it - we're all rooting for you!