It's not really relative. It's very varying depending on your tasks, location and environment and kind of restaurant.

We were at a very stressful location and working at another location could be a huge relief because of lower load. I would imagine the work environment would have to go to absolute trash for the dev job to come close.

If you say restaurant, it feel like it's not fast food, and the average differences in wages, hours, stress level and customer appreciation between establishments called restaurants vs fast food places is probably quite significant.

I find software development both emotionally and mentally exhausting. And frankly, quite boring most of the time. I would love to be able to make the same money slinging pizza like I did back in college. The job was trivial enough in complexity that it freed my mind to think about and do other interesting things.

I knew one software development manager who gave it all up and became a plumber. Another became a high school mathematics teacher.

I've been running an excavator recently to do some...yard work...and honestly that line of work seems pretty appealing, and quite lucrative.