Go work for some bigco that is coasting on a great market position of a SaaS project and you can definitely find software jobs where you can work about 30hrs a week, make around 130-180k a year, and chill hard.

Only problem is that after a while you'll get really complacent and your skills may suffer. If there are layoffs and you have to find another job, you might be in trouble.

You shouldn't worry about falling out of the technology rat race. Everyone's stack is different, you would be lucky to time learning a technology with a particular job opportunity that is using it. You may as well just research it the weekend before the interview and be upfront about your ability to learn it.

You can't know every technology and in 5 years you will probably be applying for jobs with tech that doesn't even exist yet.

I'm not at all talking about knowing the latest tech when I say your skills may suffer. I'm just saying that in my experience, sometimes in a chill job your fundamentals as a developer can suffer. You can literally get worse at programming if you aren't challenged.

However, if you are an internally motivated and driven person, you can take that extra time and energy you get from the chill job and learn all kinds of things and become a much better engineer. The situation is whatever you make of it.

Well I think my skills suffer more because of work: after a day of "being productive" at work, I no longer have the time and energy to explore and learn new stuff, which is how I gained and expanded my skills in the first place.

Yes, the extra time you get from the chill job can go either way. It's whatever you make of it. If you use the time to learn, you can definitely learn more at a chill job than at a hard job.

In certain parts of governments, non-profits and academia, can be found jobs which both (a) have lower stress / better work life balance, and (b) use innovative tech which keeps one's skills sharp and up to date. These jobs don't typically pay amazingly, but sometimes have a good pension plan, and the option is always there to go back to well-paid higher stress workplace later to fix finances if required....

> How do I transition from a high stress high pay software engineer to a medium pay low stress other kind of technology worker like you have described???

Work literally _anywhere else_ but Sillicon Valley. These jobs are aplenty; they are probably at least 2/3 of all programmer jobs everywhere.

I've only actually worked for one company (1/5) that emphasized productivity and graded people on it. My default answer would be most of them. I would say the majority of tech companies are work/life oriented, especially compared to other industries.

Software Engineers and Data Engineers have one of the best leverage positions in the work force. If you don't like your current employer's practices, find another one.

I'm with you. I don't know of such a thing.

But luckily I differ from you in that I'm a type-A personality, and slow, relaxed work bothers me. I want the high-speed high-stakes atmosphere.

I recognise that I'm not a normal person in this regard, which is why I say I am lucky.

I don't think working support is less stress, just less pay. And I think many people think working 40 hours a week counts as a good or decent work/life balance, which is frankly absurd, even if one is working from home or has no commute. A 5X8 work week is still essentially living to work. Unfortunately it is often the minimum one can get away with.