[USER]

After a decade in software engineering, I am burnt out and considering quitting my job. I grew quickly early on but stagnating as a senior engineer.

I think I don’t have the corporate soft skills (assertiveness, self-promotion, dealing with politics etc) to grow any further and I am currently in a team with extremely high workload that doesn’t work for my stage of life (mom with young kids, in a team with mostly younger men who work long hours)

I am considering pivoting out of tech to somewhere more slower paced and comfortable, even if the pay is much lower. I guess I can coast FIRE if I make some changes to my lifestyle.

What are some good pivots for a software developer, where I can reasonably coast for the rest of my career?

Something like maintaining the website for a local library sounds amazing.

If you are in one such career, can you please help share how you found the job and the minimal qualifications required?

Thanks for any pointers!

[Aisha]

I know a lot of friends from tech who pivoted to working for the city, maintaining their website, etc

[Daisy]

Business Analyst. You’d be great because you already know the developer side. You just need to be the liaison for the business and technical teams.

[Beth]

What about related areas but not direct dev work – DevOps coaching etc?

[Amy]

You should check out governmental organizations and state universities. Look for places that offer a pension, healthcare coverage and more accommodating schedule for parents.

I have a friend who used to work at Microsoft and left for a job at a university.

He is so much happier in his current job. No long hours, no stress, great employee benefits.

[Lizzie]

Someone mentioned project manager but many companies also have people who liaise between devs and teams who need the dev work.

We call them business process leads at my company.

Basically they need to understand how to explain to devs what the internal teams need so they can streamline and prevent wasted time of valuable devs.

[Maria]

Does your company have other roles you could transition into? I’m seeing more and more roles where swe skills are a total plus!
Although if you want to pivot outside of tech altogether, internal mobility may not be your best bet.

[Author]

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