In my experience: All jobs suck! Some pay better than others. Profiting from personal projects is the exception, not the rule. I too find it difficult to re

In my experience: All jobs suck! Some pay better than others. Profiting from personal projects is the exception, not the rule. I too find it difficult to retain complex information in my head - unlike many of my colleagues who seem to be able to instantly recall details of APIs, etc. I need to look up details, even syntax for rarely used language constructs. I accept my relative shortcomings and write things up in notebooks (the bound paper type) and draw diagrams to remind me how sub-systems interconnect / inter-relate. My programs have more comments than usual, but at least I can evolve my own code 6-9 months down the track. I believe that software developers will continue to be one of the best paid careers. Good sales people selling big ticket services might earn more - but it didn't work out for me. Too much politics in management, so I'm back in software development.