I’m in my late 30s and basically unemployable in any traditional sense. I’ve never held a professional developer role, but I have played one as “consultant” and now I play it again as an “independent developer.”

With two years of savings you have almost no excuse. Just don’t burn a bridge. Don’t be too honest. Ask for a 6 month leave of absence (quit if they won’t give it), create an account on Upwork and set your rate a bit north of your regional average. Pick a project that’ll take a week and SAY NO to projects that smell funny. If you say yes to everything you won’t know what you like until you say no.

And don’t work too hard. Save some brain cycles for cooking, for exercise. And don’t be afraid to work a weekend or evening because hey, each day is the “same” and it’s now up to you when a day is “special.”

p.s. For context, once you have kids there will be weekends where you look forward to Monday morning because … they go to daycare. Really, daycare lets me be a great parent. It concentrates your patience and love - and you should treat “work” the same way, with patience and love.