I went from engineer to manager to director to VP of Eng to advisor. I am now bootstrapping a startup alongside the advisory work. I love building and coding h

I went from engineer to manager to director to VP of Eng to advisor. I am now bootstrapping a startup alongside the advisory work. I love building and coding has always drawn me in. I also love working with people so managing engineers and later whole teams turned out to be fulfilling. Now as an advisor I get to pick projects that have particular aspects of management that I liked and companies need. Along the way I learned that I like being a teacher and enjoy recruiting. Both of these things surprised me. Also I have more time left over and am getting back to the roots of building things. Along the way I learned a ton. I had to change my mindset numerous times. It was not easy going and there was a lot of effort and frustration along the way. Building a business involves marketing and selling and those are the things that come hardest to me. However, I even found those parts to be fulfilling in the right ratio with building. Key thing is realizing that past a certain point more money does not translate in more happiness. If you can define what you might like doing, and can build up some cash reserves, give the new passion a go. It feels dangerous and will require a lot of work, but if it works out you’ll be glad. If it does not work out you can always go back to what you did before.