When I find myself depressed about work,there are three questions that help me a lot: Do I like what I'm doing? (solving problems, making software) Do I like

When I find myself depressed about work,there are three questions that help me a lot: Do I like what I'm doing? (solving problems, making software) Do I like who I'm working with? Do I like the company I'm working for? If you answer yes to the first question, an no to either of the next two questions, time to make a change. If you feel like your work isn't valued, go to work for a small company or a startup where everything you do, every line of code, every time you take out the trash is valued. > Nearing my 40s, so my profile is less appealing to employers, this field is very oriented to young people. Not really true. Entry level is oriented to young people. Often, front-end is seen as entry-level (it should not, but it is) because junior devs come knowing the latest-greatest (and not much else). Senior developers tend to get a little prickly about learning the latest javascript libraries and css techniques. At my company, I have a great mid-career front end dev who is making the jump to full stack, and is fantastic at it because he's highly aware of the impact of back-end design decisions on front-end performance and front-end developer experience. Our APIs get better every day because of him.