Corporate software engineering killed my love for the field for a while. I did math for a bit, but always ended up coming back. I realized that the soul sucking (but well paying) job is a means to an end. I'd take half my salary to develop algorithms and play in compilers all day...but unfortunately there's all of 10 positions a year in compiler fields.

A lot of people tend to do stuff like gardening or woodworking and for many this stuff works. I tried it, but I always said "damn I could design something to do this for me" and I never "got" it. I couldn't finish graduate school because I have bills to pay and you don't get classes paid for unless you sell your soul to the university. They offered me an insulting $14,000/year to be a graduate student. I might've considered it for $35,000/year. So here I am, in purgatory, because I love computer science but my day job just wants me to throw together another CRUD app.

Same happened to me except one difference. I wanted to get out for around 15 years then I quit my job and lived in another country and travelled to try to leave it but I couldn’t find something else I enjoyed. then I came back to the industry and still hated the stress around it. Due to the pandemic I was forced to, in a way, face my fears around work. I stopped avoiding the parts of the work I found stressful and instead challenged myself. I stopped trying to do things in a half ass way when I knew what the right way was. In hindsight I think I was a pretty mediocre software engineer. And just recently got a new job that is the most challenging I’ve ever had but I chose into the job and sought something that felt very mission driven. So it took me roughly 20 years to get acceptance around the work and my relationship to it. Doesn’t mean work isn’t stressful but everything else around it has changed. I care a lot more about what I’m working on and participating in a deeper way.

So… the way out can mean being exactly where you are now

What do you want to do?

I want to buy a backhoe and install septic tanks and dig house footers 2-3 weeks / month (around the weather) and use my software skills 1-2 weeks a month on projects / teams that have the same values I do around simplicity, clean code, automation, etc.

Haha exactly the same story here.