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Well, I dunno what "senior" is, but we do agency-style work for clients and my boss bills me that way. I'm on a very small team where I'm the technical lead and I code every day. I make whatever tech decisions I want. I have a salary that's not large, but I also work a 30 hour week. 100% remote and nobody cares when those 30-ish hours are as long as I get stuff done and make some rare client meetings. I trust my boss…
I've met one of the three co-founders twice, first for an interview and second for a weekend with his family. All three co-founders join me five days a week for a brief standup/scrum and one day each week we include a sales and strategy update.
They pay in the range of my market value and have steadily increased my equity share of the enterprise. I supplement that income by teaching sea kayak technique and rescue year-round and snowboard instruction in the winter.
I try to put in at least four hours of work every day, including weekends, and balance that with four hours of year-round kayaking, hiking, house-work, seasonal snow-sports, or some other physical activity.
I do this "job" to keep my brain sharp and hope to continue well past the point of typical retirement. The same applies for my non-"job" activities. If I did not need to worry about saving for retirement, I would probably still do this. The joy comes from solving problems, not from stacking cash.
Become the low-key hero your co-workers need.
p.s. I started kayaking seriously twelve years ago because I would see these people in their 70s surfing big waves in 16' boats. "That's what I want to be when I grow up, that or retired!"
Else the job is fine.
Ho! And I inherited a fork of 500k slocc using 5 languages and so much frameworks I can't count them anymore.
I am the janitor of a huge codebase with a management under acid, but it pays enough for me to not sleep under the bridge, so I guess I am happy.
I have 19 managers, none of them understanding the job at hand and a family I can't see because of 3h/day commutation. Else the job is fine. Ho! And I inherited a fork of 500k slocc using 5 languages and so much frameworks I can't count them anymore. I am the janitor of a huge codebase with a management under acid, but it pays enough for me to not sleep under the bridge, so I guess I am happy.
Yes, I'm very happy with my job. I work at a company which cares deeply about solving hard problems well, and that care translates into good working conditions, great work/life balance, support from management for engineering concerns, and a very nice benefits package. There is also a focus on having separate promotion tracks for managers vs. more technically inclined people.
There have been jobs where I have either tired of the novelty of the problems, changes in management, changes in company policy, etc., but at that point I find a new job in a better company and continue to find happiness.
If you're not happy where you are, and you are considered a senior dev, then take responsibility for yourself and find a position that you enjoy. If you're locked into a company because of golden handcuffs, lack of local resources, or family obligations, then find activities outside of work that provide what you're missing.
All the senior devs I've worked with who seemed truly happy at work were that way because they spent plenty of time with their family, volunteering, and just doing stuff outside of work that was meaningful to them. None of them poured everything they had in their job, tying it with their identity. People in that latter category tended to be more brilliant in general (for example a problem comes up and they immediatel…
Incidentally, that 10/90 ratio happens to dominate everything else worth pursuing also. Sports in particular. You get that initial ramp up high and then when you hit the part with smaller and smaller gains, that's where "learning to love the grind" kicks in. It's much harder than it sounds, too!