Yes. i wish i'd gone into finance or accounting or something. i believe i would be in a much better place financially today, and the career path would have been much easier to navigate: ever met someone in finance who studied for months to get ready for an interview? me neither.

the software profession is very two-tiered: you either get a job at a FAANG or FAANG-equiv firm whre the pay is good and there are the opportunities for growth ... and then there's everything else.

in many places it goes like this: you're very much treated like a cog, managers -- and "project managers" especially -- won't have any real understanding of what engineers do, there is disorganization, lack of planning, and/or engineers have never been challenged to grow, and over time you end up dealing with lots of tirefires.

if i knew of a way to do something different while maintaining my current income, i would do it.