algoguy

I think what happened is imposteur syndrome, coupled with doing probably a little too well, too fast. I felt a bit of a fraud, that I was merely copying other's ideas, not really bringing too much to the company, and was just lucky to be leading the most successful team of the company (people had quit, and I was promoted because there was a vacant position).

I also felt that I had not much more to achieve, and therefore that I had no challenge to solve. I completely disengaged and felt I had to hide the fact that I was just lucky/copying other people. That made me feel that I had to play politics to hide my shortcomings, and made me disengage even more from the technical side.

I feel it would be quite a bit of mental effort to get back on the technical side, but I also feel I would fail if I did so. Younger guys come out of university, work 14+ hours a day and are more skilled than me already in some areas.

Also, I started to have kids at about the time things started to go downhill, and I think that played a very large role: I became much less interested in spending so much of my time at work, focusing on making money and not helping anyone real...

Thanks for sharing your experience. I find it very hard to know when the moment to say "stop" comes, but yeah, I think I have to say it at some point.

Thanks for your advice, I appreciate your input. It sounds reasonable, and that's sort of where my mind has been at for a few years. I'm getting to the point where I struggle to see myself doing it anymore, but I am not indeed in a situation where I have enough money aside (the high compensation I have is only in the last couple of years). But maybe you're right, maybe I should suck it up and try to be thankful for the opportunity to make money, in spite of how much I hate that job.

Thanks for your reply. I think your advice is reasonable, and I've been trying to get my family to lower the expenses (which they have been receptive to try and do). What you say is reasonable, but it feels scary for me to take the plunge. In particular, say I take a 10 times salary reduction, and discover 2 years in that the new job is actually as boring as the old one. I'm afraid of feeling even worse then...

I could take a sabbatical, yes. However, I fear my skills would completely collapse, and then I would not be employable at all. It would certinly be very hard to come back to the industry.

I have enough money to take time off, but not enough to retire.

My fear is therefore that I would take time off, would really struggle to get back to work, and if I were able to, would earn a tenth of what I was making before and would feel like I've regressed a lot.