I'm quite similar to you, problems are what motivate me and I also don't have a degree. First thing I would do in your position is to get a degree. In my case

I'm quite similar to you, problems are what motivate me and I also don't have a degree. First thing I would do in your position is to get a degree. In my case it's for immigration. I just need that piece of paper so I'm looking at more practical universities, not necessarily prestigious. I'm looking at WGU[1] because they geared around professionals who might already know course content. Regardless, put that $130k to good use. What I do in my spare time is contribute to open source projects. If I can't find one that piques my interest, I start one (and subsequently they get no attention, but that's not the point). I work to get paid. Right now I'm lucky enough to be working on some interesting graph theory problems, but it hasn't always been that way and nor will it necessarily stay that way forever. If programming is your hobby, maintain that hobby. Your employer has other things to worry about. >[2]: Even if your job was tasting pies, every now and then you'd taste a bad one. [1]: http://www.wgu.edu/ http://www.wgu.edu/ [2]: https://www.reddit.com/r/Showerthoughts/comments/4toouj/somewhere_in_the_world_there_is_somebody_with/d5j58rf https://www.reddit.com/r/Showerthoughts/comments/4toouj/some...