Comment by alexpham14

Haha, I hit something similar after 12 years, just didn’t care anymore, and the idea of another sprint planning meeting made me nauseous. Jumped into product for a while thinking proximity to decision-making would help. It didn’t. Just more meetings, more politics.

What helped wasn’t the role shift, but dialing the intensity way down. Took a year doing part-time contract work, no Jira tickets. I know a few folks who leaned into teaching, some into small business stuff—bike repair, roasting coffee, etc. None of them are making FAANG money, but they seem… less fried.

If you’ve got savings and no urgent obligations, might be worth treating this as a decompression window instead of a pivot. Let your brain deflate a bit before deciding what’s next.