Wow I've been a software engineer nearly 15 years. When I was younger and had more passion in my career I would come to this site then I realised tech was largely full of annoying people with big egos and most of us spend our careers endlessly rebuilding the same shit in slightly different ways and it's quite rare to actually make big money from startups / equity and soul destroying trying to do it. I find it's also getting harder to avoid difficult ethical positions and compromising your own values with many of today's roles in the tech industry.
A repost of this thread on Twitter caught my attention.
I now work in a software job I'm much more comfortable with having gone through a number of much more technically challenging and 'successful' roles. I basically took over as the sole developer for a tiny family software business. The pay is not quite as good but once I'd proven myself I got to do things how I wanted and am respected by the family that run the company. I rarely now work long hours, often completing tasks in less time than I estimate they'll take and occasionally taking time out of my working day for myself. I don't feel remotely guilty for doing so - it's a role where the expectations and bar are much lower than I'm used to. Regardless I've delivered several sizable paid projects, usually about one a year while doing odd bits of support and development for the company's existing clients. It's the closest thing to running a business of my own without taking on the hassle and risk of employing people and managing the books etc. So I'd say it's a pretty good deal. However I am still beholden to some slightly idiotic decisions our customers make and have to deal with them directly but I don't mind - the variety is part of what attracted me to the job. I get involved in everything from pre-sales, producing quotes through to delivery and occasional support of the software.
It's hard to find a job role like the one I'm in but I think the starting point has to be that you have an idea of what you're after. The more you consider what opportunities there are that are not the usual tech nonsense you start to see there are definitely options out there.
I would say you need to have some motivation and contentment in your job even if it is fairly minor things otherwise you will probably end up depressed and start to subconsciously sabotage your own life and career. If you start to feel guilty about how little you do that's a good sign you've swung too far the other way.
All that said I would say good luck to anyone taking this path. Ultimately it has left me much happier to give up the aspirations of becoming CTO of some fast growing company and chill out doing my own thing. I spend time with my friends, family and my wife without the grinding stress of a high-flying job and the constant worry that I'm going to be called on in the middle of the night or work late or a whole weekend without any warning.
Life your fucking lives people.