Don't think in categories of promotion/demotion. The best you can do for yourself is to find the right place for you. If you don't feel well with what you are

Don't think in categories of promotion/demotion. The best you can do for yourself is to find the right place for you. If you don't feel well with what you are doing it does not matter how high on the corporate ladder you are. Treat it as a whole package of which prestige and pay is only one factor. I know personally a guy who left being a director at a large company and moved with his wife to a small farm. They don't earn a fraction of what he earned before but he said he would not come back. I have skipped over promotions to keep working with code because I don't feel well spending more than fraction of my time managing projects and teams. I have recently built my own electronics lab and am tinkering with increasingly complex designs because it is just fun. Complemented with my ability to code I plan to use that to maybe build some some products. No concrete plans other than explore what feels interesting to me and do it at my own pace.