What should I do with my life?

While I had very humble beginnings, in a poor but well educated family I managed to achieve pretty much everything I've set my mind to, including going trough school and university and being self sufficient (money-wise) since I was about 15.

After finishing university I worked on 3 continents with some very large manufacturing, engineering and construction companies, always overachieving (and being also a cheap worker since I come from a 2nd world country). I've got promoted quickly and very recently I have reached a senior management level in large company. Just to be clear my expertise is in IT infrastructure and telecom and I'm 29.

However, job satisfaction is low now because this company is a politicized beyond my liking and also I enjoy engineering a lot more than meetings and people-management.

How many of you have been in the same situation and what did you do? Did you stick with the cushy salary or did you spend your last penny on some startup idea? Did you wind back on your career and invest in your personal life (get married, have kids, all of which I haven't done yet) or did you decide to push further the corporate ladder? Or did you all try to "balance it out" and manage the routine?

29 is stupidly young to be a mentor, but it's a great moment to start working on helping others in your field of expertise.

I think HN is not a place for that kind of posts. It's a place for people like you to post about their incentives to help the world (and succeed in the process), thanks to what they achieved in their field of expertise. Otherwise, just open a blog.

However, I think you should find something that interests you, something you enjoy doing overall, and do that.

This could be:

- Entrepreneurial - see a gap which needs filling, and start to fill it.

- A pure hobby - something you could never make a living out of.

- Changing the way you make your living, working at a startup, or teaching others what you have learned.

- Studying something interesting.

*I come from a moderately poor area in the UK, there are plenty of people I know who don't apply themselves. You are a welcome contrast to this!