Similar to many of the other comments here: you should figure out what "success" means to you. It's easy to make the default assumption that success means lots

Similar to many of the other comments here: you should figure out what "success" means to you. It's easy to make the default assumption that success means lots of money and long working hours, at which point you've defined success in opposition to work-life balance. (Not that it's necessarily wrong to do so, but I'd contend that it is problematic to do so without explicitly deciding that this is what you want.) I'd estimate I work 40-45 hours most weeks, with occasional bursts of 50-55 hours pre-deadline often compensated for by shorter weeks afterwards. The popular myth of insane working hours aside, this is actually pretty normal [1] in our industry. I get to work with awesome people on projects that I care about, I earn enough to live comfortably but not lavishly (as do many people in this industry), and I have enough time / energy left over to enjoy hobbies, friends, and travel. I also get to learn continuously and enjoy reasonable latitude / autonomy in decision making. To me, this means I've been pretty damn successful. Could I have more of these things I've described? Possibly, though maybe not more of all of them at once. Am I living the hyper-optimized best possible version of my life? Arguably not, but it's also not clear to me that this exists; all important choices involve tradeoffs, and what's optimal now may not seem so to 5-years-later me. Personally, I've found it healthier to accept that my definition of success has changed and will change further, and that finding success is maybe not as important as searching for it :) [1] https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2019?utm_source=so-owned&utm_medium=blog&utm_campaign=dev-survey-2019&utm_content=launch-blog#work-_-hours-worked-per-week https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2019?utm_source=so...