(It used to be publishing, then helping small startups grow, then privacy and now a cross section of mental health and tech.)

Ideal:

1. Build a small thing solving an actual problem

2. Tell as story and teach people something using the thing I build: https://sonnet.io/posts/sit/

Here's how not to approach this problem:

I had spent ages thinking about this, or rather justifying my existing choices. I literally had SWOT analysis charts describing different paths I could take.

The main issue was that I was approaching this from a purely rational point of view. But, I had to first learn about the emotional component of my decisions and biases. I grew up without financial security so that also tends to cloud my judgement (e.g. by comparing myself to people who work more stressful jobs). I was busy, overworked and really stressed then (but well paid!).

Scaling down was very hard, in terms of self-judgement, but my health has improved drastically.

I don't have time to write about this here, but in short: I think that many people who end up in engineering careers tend to get caught in a situation where they keep getting rewarded for solving problems, but eventually lose the context of what kinds of problems they're solving.

For _example_: you start with your first SWE gig in an area you like, move to a tech lead/architect, then to a CTO working on a much meatier/"serious" problems.

But as soon as you step back from the game progression graph (intentionally or not) you realise you lost the context, you don't give a shit about adtech or crypto, or marketing, or agile. You are really good at something you actually don't give a shit about.

I don't think that SWEs are the only to end up with this issue, but that people who choose this line of work are more predisposed to getting a kick from chasing problems.