Hey, I also dislike large company politics and have managed to more or less accomplish what you've described here with freelancing. You'll never get 100% away

Hey, I also dislike large company politics and have managed to more or less accomplish what you've described here with freelancing. You'll never get 100% away from interfacing with fellow humans, but I've found that a couple of factors in the types of gigs I favor have made my life mostly free from company life: 1. Find gigs with small companies. And by small I mean like 1-3 people max. My favorite are the solo founders who built a SaaS app and are quietly making bank and need a developer to maintain it. Speaking of which, 2. Find gigs where you can become "the guy" (or gal) for your client. These smaller companies often don't need a full time developer and can't even afford one anyway. My favorite setup is 10 hours a week indefinitely where I basically do what you described - acquire ticket, write code, make pull request. You are the secret weapon for the client's success. How do you get these kinds of jobs? Do interesting or impressive technical things in public and don't be in a hurry. I've collected around 4 of these over the last few years and now make a very good living working less than 40 hours a week. I never really have to do "the hustle" of freelancing because these gigs are very sticky. I've never had anyone let me go, and in fact in a few cases I tried to leave but they then offered me an even better arrangement to stay around. Contrast this with the horrors of Upwork - freelancing doesn't have to be like that. I don't really know how I would ever go to a normal 40 hour a week job now. Happy to chat with you or anyone else about this if I can help, my emails in my profile.