Until this one project where we were asked to 'fix' an already written Android app (written by an Indian outsource then sent to Canada). The contract was for a massive amount of money, everything looked clear cut and straight forward, how could we say no?
For almost 7 months (!!!) my team and I had endless meetings next to a wall map containing the 5000+ classes that each had to be dissected, understood and reimplemented properly. All the comments were in at least two different foreign languages, and even the best translation services (human included) could only give us at best translations like: 'not class, forwards' or 'use brick making way here', most likely due to the comments being poor in their original language in the first place (not due to the translation).
At first I had great momentum, I was an unstoppable force; then quickly things started slowing down - each task started taking hours longer, than days longer, than weeks longer. Ultra trivial fixes like the placement of one statement outside a try catch, could easily take a whole month to locate (by a team of 4!).
After pouring my heart and soul into this project day after day, grinding myself literally to the bone; I started getting depressed, physically sick to my stomach for days at a time, starting fights with co-workers over absolutely nothing, just so I wouldn't have to look at that fucking code one more time. Anything to just not look at that code one more time.
By the end of the project (which we did actually manage to complete), I was waiting for that moment of euphoria, that release of completion, that I would never ever again need to look at that code, or work on that project.
But it didn't come.
I was paid more than 100k for completion of the project, so I was well reimbursed for my time.
That's when I realized that it's really not about the money, it's not about the team, or the language; It's not about your repo, or your source control techniques. It's not about agile, and it's not about problem solving. It's not about working from an office or from home, and it's not about the mother fucking 'culture'.
When you're lying on your death bed, and you look back; will you be proud that you spent all that time and suffering to fix an app for some asshole who is trying to make a quick buck by exploiting people who aren't technologically wise enough to realize what they are doing?
The next day my boss asked to meet with me privately; thinking I would be fired (and happy with the idea) we met briefly at a local coffee shop. She said that all the anger, depression, and self loathing was 'worth it' because 'I made a lot of people rich' in the process (myself included) and they were happy to deal with that (and even to pay for therapy).
I was offered EVEN MORE money to continue working on projects exactly like these, to the company we had just discovered a cash cow of an app crop, and I was the golden goose. I could easily do this the rest of my life, and lead whatever life I wanted to outside of work.
I quit on the spot, and laughed and cried the whole way home. Knowing that I would be blackballed in the community that I had worked so hard to establish myself in.
Literally career suicide. The company didn't recover, and a lot of people were (and still are very pissed off with me - like angry emails, restraining orders, fucking pissed).
I promised myself that from now on I would only do work that I believed in enough to starve to death for (and it was looking for a long time like that was going to be the case). The truth is, if you want a job where you can make 6 figures (or even 7 if you're doing it right), you will find it. You will always find it, and they will always be there.
There is a vacuum of talent on the community of expert programmers caused by major corporations like ibm, amazon, facebook, twitter, and snapchat just filling up cubes in their 'programmer cluster'. A group of people they can throw whatever stupid, or trivial tasks at - and you won't say shit, because damn that pay is tasty. You're breaking peoples rights to privacy, doing WAY less than ethical things, and you probably don't even know it (because that's how it's supposed to work, or someone else above you clearly isn't doing their job).
My only advice is to get the fuck out. Run, run as fast as you possibly can and never look back.
Never respond to any recruiters for any reason, never respond to job offers, and don't even think about looking for another position at another company (I promise it's the same thing, no matter how they promise you otherwise, and tell you that their culture is the dopest - nothing like clubbing seals with some rad people right?).
Get off your ass, and do something worthwhile. If you can't do that, then learn how. If you can't do that, then you're a drone and you should keep that shitty job because it's the best you're ever going to do (in which case, fuck you, you make the world a worse place for everyone by whoring your skills out to unethical assholes for cash).
Make something that garners zero profit, make something that only helps people, make something that changes the world for the better. You will quickly see your entire world, and all the people in it change before you eyes. You will get more job offers in your inbox than spam, because the world will see that you don't give a fuck about anything but getting shit done and helping people.
Today I run a few companies, the largest of which is a NPO machine learning research firm offering free services to help cure cancer, track missing children, follow and assess viral outbreaks, and front line ML research pushing the needle of science forward (email: freeML@gatosomina.com for services); and some of the others include: organic vegetable gardening as a service (physical outdoor labour, everyday, which I enjoy more than anything) and free apps that assist paramedics and doctors (without ads or bullshit).
If you want to be happy, like, really, actually happy (and not just wealthy) you're going to have to risk it to get the biscuit; and it's going to be the hardest battle you've ever fought in your entire life, by at least a few magnitudes.
Good luck, it's a jungle out there.