Funny enough, I left my well paying and stable paramedic job for an internship in info sec, and the manager was very clear that it would not convert to full time. Certainly was the biggest flip the table moment career wise, even took a photo of me flipping of the back of the ambulance as I left on my last day.
Despite this being the most insane advice, I think it’s spoken to me the most. Thank you for taking the time to share, means a lot.
Always happy to share my experiences - for whatever they’re worth to you. Trust yourself, and move forward with confidence that you’ll be able to embrace the change and find your way.
The burnout is, to me, just a sign that something about me has already changed and I need to change my environment to match it. It feels like the opposite when I’m in the middle of it, but when I’m clear of it… it’s pretty obvious that I grew first, and where I was no longer worked for me.
I’ve rationalized staying where I was exactly once in my life, and learned I wasted a lot of time and effort and emotional endurance with nothing but a financial reward. It was not a period I look back on and say I achieved something, or I learned anything at all really. The only thing I learned was that staying in that state is lost time.
The twists and turns that happened after each time I jumped off the cliff’s edge? Now those’re some stories. I recommend those. And if it’s speaking to you, then maybe that’s something worth considering. Good luck, my friend!
Are you sure, though? As I said, the payments are EASY. I’ll DM you my USDC wallet address just in case you change your mind, k?
I agree wholeheartedly with this. The more you continue building your career, the more this becomes relevant.
This is an aside to say: practice self reliance daily. In a world where the majority of folks are handing over their entire disposable income in hopes of having convenience automate their lives, the ability to actually take care of yourself and those around you has faded.
That gives you a competitive edge that others simply don’t have. It gives you freedom, and it gives you the ability to make decisions that others cannot. They don’t get the option to do basic things when they’ve outsourced the entire chain.
As the years go on, I find it harder and harder to respect people who do not have an interest in figuring out how things work. How their lives work and how to make their lives better. That’s how people move forward, and I’m not just talking about tech. It’s a fundamental curiosity and it astounds me that so many people want to abdicate that self-reliance.
Spot on.
I made my way up the ranks in B2B software for 20 years and loved every minute of overnight on-calls, P0 fire drills, managing people, owning P&Ls, etc. Didn’t matter what industry the company was serving, I just loved being around tech and like-minded people.
The last 5-6 years I started losing that spark. Even when I was at the peak of my career (pay, confidence, low stress) during that time I noticed that “line go up” started to overshadow “build cool things” more and more. Conversations around the executive table were mostly about cost-cutting measures and polishing turds for the board.
I started looking around and finding that most tech was going this way. It felt like an existential crisis seeing tech be turned into subscription models and survival of the best marketing campaign.
I had enough, hung up my chinos for some Carhartts and started a business installing consumer tech (networking, security, AV). It’s been liberating and stressful but I’m glad I stepped away from the industry.
I was fortunate to be in a good spot to rip the bandaid but I know that’s not the case for everyone. I would suggest getting out of your comfort zone at a capacity that’s comfortable whether it’s a new hobby or a full life change. Leading up to my mid-life career change I had been tinkering and learning about networking, self-hosting, home servers.
AI really rocketed that self-taught path too.
A $20 Claude subscription has taken flickers of curiosity and turned it into a freaking flamethrower. Now it’s a $200 subscription with six agents building multiple projects (personal and professional), on the job help and going down the rabbit hole of random shower thoughts. It’s the same feeling when I first discovered Google and Wikipedia back in the day.
Be curious, stay agile and lean into discomfort.
While I love programming, I don’t always enjoy the thing I have to program for work.
I would be lying if I said I was passionate about ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning). But it pays the bills and is still has some interesting problems so I find it difficult to complain at the end of the day.
I hope one day find work in open source. That would align more with my interests and values, and allow me to “give back” as nearly everything I use outside of work is open source. I make minor contributions to a few projects when I find the time and energy.
A double edge sword of tech is the constant and rapid shifting of the landscape. The endless learning and challenge is one of the best things about this field, but also can be rather draining at times.
I busted an expensive part a while back and it kind of permanently broke my nerves for working on all these expensive parts, they weren’t even particularly upset about it either, but still, rather than burnt out I’m still doing it every now and then, a little bit more, more recently, I really do like it but health and stress keep me from full potential
I hope you can move on from your stress rather than your hobby
First thing to realise:
THIS. IS. OK. 
It’s absolutely fine to feel this way. And even better to explore and question it.
My first job was waaaaaaaay back in 1995. And I was glad to have it. I was working with interesting technologies, it was challenging work, and I never got bored. I rapidly moved on to other jobs that were just as good for me.
Then I had an episode of burnout, and then a couple of jobs later some other issues, including probably undiagnosed depression.
And as I got back on my feet, I realised something important: I am more than just my job.
I had spent almost two decades efining myself primarily by what I did as a career.
We too often define ourselves by our jobs. We meet new people and one of the first questions is “What do you do?”.
Not “What do you like doing?”, not “What do you want to do?”. When you think about it, it’s a bit weird, isn’t it?
This is nothing new. Notice how people’s surnames match old jobs. Smith, Fisher, Wainwright, Tailor, and so forth.
In technology we usually like our jobs. So it’s easy to play along with this quirk of society. It’s easy to have this be the majority, or even the totality, of our identity.
So perhaps, whilst you were away doing something else, you’ve realised you can be more than just your job.
You just haven’t consciously realised that you realised it yet.
All good questions. You said in a follow up that you like your current job, and you like your colleagues, so I’d just like to add:
You can be more than just your job. You can add to what you have.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t change your job. I’m saying that there’s a chance that what you’re going through is the unusual experience of broadening who you can be.
That might mean a new job, or it might mean having a job you like that pays the bills so that you can go do other things at the weekends.
Perhaps a good way to think of this is that you’ve grown, and now have empty space in which to place something else you can be. And that space feels new and weird, but it’s OK because you’ll fill it soon enough.
Anyway, I’m heading towards rambling now. 
It’s great that you’re asking others and exploring this feeling. I hope that it’s a positive thing for you - and I suspect that it will be. 