I miss developing but try to do some on my spare time, but I have to be careful with IP because of my current contract states that anything I produce potentially is not owned by me.
My experience working as a developer was that it got exponentially harder when I got my kids. Kids suck up all your free time and then also a little bit of your working time. Especially when they are small and need to go to kindergarten, they need to be picked up early, cared for and have vacations.
Don't get me wrong, I love my kids and how I have changed as a parent - but it made it much more difficult to compete with developers without kids and without a partner.
why? imo, when I was without kids and a partner myself I was much more productive, I worked all the time, always giving 100% and then doing free overtime just to fix that hard issue that had ready by certain time and date.
It is difficult to compete with someone like that.
* I look quite young for my age (most put me closer to 25)
* I work in a small company. I'm an employee, but my role is closer to being entrepreneurial. I have significant flexibility in our stack, tools, etc.
* I have no kids and rent my home.