Take a month off your job. Find out what you really like. You can read through all the replies let them brew, but the final answer will come from within. Trust your gut and take the risk.

May the force be with you !!!

I was always denied promotions, I’m from the generation where cool workplaces promoted only women, so it was very unfair. I wanted to be on the path to become PO. And given how fast the startup I created reached $1m ARR, I confirm I’m satisfyingly able to PO and the lost promotions were just plain old gender preferences of workplaces.

I now love my work. Speaking to humans (and not through chat) was my need, I’ve told it to every employer. So yes, find what you need and move heaven and earth until you get it, may the force be with you.

Instead of asking "where do I go to grow", think "what can I contribute?" "what can I teach?"... If money is also a priority, then find the intersection of that and what pays well (which luckily isn't that hard as a dev).

1 - By "producer" I mean an evangelizer, synthesizer, teacher, not just an "inventor" of brand new ideas

I'm a good developer, I enjoy coding but I also love teaching, blogging, and mentoring. This would be a dream role, but does it close off other opportunities to me? I am slightly disillusioned with enterprise software because of how chock-full of politics these places are. I'm too old for the early stage startup scene, so I'm wondering whether this would be a good opportunity.

What do you see as the roadmap for someone who specializes in teaching software development, and being an advocate?

As for opportunities, for me, this became a direct stepping stone to a Product Management role. I also strongly believe I could have shifted back to a dev role if I wanted to. YMMV, and maybe the PM track isn't for you, but I think Evangelist/Advocate roles can be great "generalist" positions that set you up nicely for the next thing, whatever that is.

One other angle is that you might have an easier job shifting back to dev if you’re at a larger company that has decent internal mobility. I feel confident I could shift back here, but it’s fair to expect that at least someone will reject you for that reason.

I would love to hear your experience

I don't know how much coding Twilio developer evangelists do, but at my current position (admittedly a much smaller company) I can do a fair amount of coding if I choose to.

The next step I might take after being an advocate (if you don't want to stay in that space and take on larger and larger projects, going from dev advocate -> senior dev advocate -> lead dev advocate -> staff dev advocate), would depend if you wanted to keep training.

There's a large need for professional software trainers out there. I was involved in AWS training for a while and was able to get $1300/day. I know some folks getting $1500+/day.

Another option would to be consult, either in devrel or in whatever Twilio is training you up on. Or write some books and see if you can make a living that way. Consulting + books + training is a great way to make a living being a teacher.

And finally, I think if you are a developer, you can always fall back to that. It may be a salary or autonomy decrease, but the market for experienced devs is pretty tight right now and I don't see that changing for a few years. There's just so much appetite for software and the complements of software devs (CPU, memory, disk, network access) keep getting cheaper.

I think the going rate has gone down for what AWS training will pay, but I guarantee you there is a new hotness that will pay well. (I know one training firm desperate for kubernetes and terraform trainers, for example.)

I took a similar path as a Microsoft Technical Evangelist and then Cloud Solution Architect. I moved from building products to helping other companies build on Azure effectively. This took many paths. Sometimes all the companies needed was some high level guidance. Sometimes this required rolling up my sleeves and diving into 3rd party code base to figure out where things are going wrong. Occasionally it involves surfacing bugs to the product team and working with them on the use case to get them resolved.

Broadly I'd consider my role to be more aligned with architecture than software developer now, but that term can have a bad connotation especially in the enterprise space with many "astronaut" or "ivory tower" architects. I work with developers, product teams and engineering managers to help improve the overall software development processes. A lot of times this means being a developer advocate and helping push communication and ideas from the bottom up. Other times it means making sure some of the foundational software development practices are in place. Other times it means helping identify and close skill gaps on development teams. And then there are the times I've got to become an internal evangelist to sell the technology vision to leadership. The work is extremely diverse which is a huge plus for me. I still get to roll up my sleeves and work on interesting problems, but I'm never on the critical path for building yet another CRUD form.

Like genuinely a pleasure to work with compared to almost anything else I can think.

Been a developer evangelist for them would be a cool role, delivering a good product to appreciative devs.

Find something you like and keep at it, since 2001, I've gone from: helpdesk > pc /network tech > network admin > system admin (windows) > system admin (linux) > sr. sysadmin (linux).

Unfortunately I've never had a decent raise without changing jobs.

unfortunate, but true in a lot of companies

It has definitely helped me out getting job interviews. It seems like the only way to a considerably higher salary would be to either move to the US or work for a US company remotely. I am in the process of moving position for a 50% raise, so I would say it paid off for me. You have much more experience then I do, so if you are thinking about moving to the US maybe apply to a few jobs(even if you don't want them) and see what kind of offers you can get. If the offers are good enough you can make the move when you are ready, if they aren't what you are expecting maybe look into a masters.

2) Not sure there is a (good) relationship between fit and salary. Some high salaries have a reason and those reasons might not be so pretty.

3) Masters. My experience is that folks opting for a masters later in their career tend to often have one of two things in mind: (a) some move towards executive/different career path, which then tends to mean MBA with the respective networking; or (b) some change in the "underlying", i.e. trying to add more skills that are somewhat different to the existing

I considered myself "technically competent" before and thought I could learn everything where it comes up, but past a certain level there are aspects to development that just are just really hard to absorb if you don't have the (hard, gritty) theoretical and mathematical foundation.

If you want to go towards the business and/or management side of things an MBA might make sense. But for a developer an MBA would be very strange on a CV.

I think the main problem is that a few companies have very challenging technical work and are happy to pay really high salaries (think OpenAI specialists, a few teams at Google / Netflix pushing the boundaries forward), the rest need relatively trivial solutions and they will pay higher than average (think most people working at FANGs on stuff they're overqualified for) or average / lower than average (think most startups, small companies).

After a while, you won't grow technically in most companies and you won't advance the state of technology.

Some people just keep contributing the same stuff over and over until they die (1), some people specialise in some technically obscure niches and charge a premium for that (2), some people decide to become people managers (3) and eventually become CTO.

It doesn't seem like you're happy with (1), you already did (3), I would say you have too much people experience to go back and do (2).

A master's degree in something you like won't be particularly useful at your level, it could be an expensive gift to yourself.

If I were you I would just start my own business: you are technical, you are a manager; the next skill to learn could be business.

Other options include looking for a CTO role in an early stage startup, or doing the interview-algorithm-memorisation-game to join a FANG. Early stage startups and FANGs will likely not be very nice places to be in terms of politics though, so you may not be as happy as you're now.

Best of luck

I have a feeling that I would need to travel and relocate to find a co-founder with a solid business idea

Also, what hobbies do you have? Perhaps you need to find something fun to do when you're not working and not being a dad/husband.

Or maybe you need to change employment to get out of your comfort zone a bit and see what else is out there. I've found it's easy to stagnate when staying with the same company too long, though there are of course exceptions.

- salary grown slowly, my colleagues got way more than me

- I enjoy mentoring and leveling different team members, and also growing them and delegate task. It left me with so little (high level decision making) that I don't feel motivated enough for.

I don't know what exactly I am looking for. I am happy, I am not saying otherwise, but I feel that I need to grow my knowledge where I will be able to provide more value in future

the growth rate that I've been going through in the past few years is slow and I would like to learn more and be able to provide bigger value to the people/companies I work with

You’ll never move ahead working for someone else. And I just don’t mean money. I also mean satisfaction.

You have to consider productizing what you do to curb your dissatisfaction.

Yes, some people are fine working all their lives and enjoy where they are.

But it sounds like you want to go further.

Make a plan with your life that will buy you more freedom.

Freedom and time is worth more than money. But it comes at a high cost with up front work.

P.S. do the hard work now when the kids are little but spend quality time with them not quantity time. As your career grows you will have incredibly fulfilling times with them when they begin to understand the world. Because by then, you would have purchased more freedom.

There's plenty of research that says the opposite: namely, that you'll make more and work less if you work for somebody else. The research I found that corroborates your claim doesn't control for the skill-level as the contradictory research does (i.e., it compares highly-educated, highly skilled entrepreneurs to workers across all skill levels).

The most cited research shows that working for someone else will get you 35% more pay after a 10 year period.

Other research convolutes the issue, but many studies seem to focus on a very specific subset (e.g., highly educated engineers).

An interesting article does support the claim, but only with the distinction of of differentiating between "entrepreneurs" and "self-employed".[2] Under this distinction, a Bill Gates is an "entrepreneur" but the local carpenter or food truck vendor is not. IMO, this skews the context in favor of highly paid businesses.

There's quite a bit of research out there and it's not my field, I just thought it was interesting how often the folksy wisdom gets touted that "you'll never get rich working for somebody else" yet there seems to be a disproportionate amount of research contradicting it.

[1]Hamilton, B.H., 2000. Does entrepreneurship pay? An empirical analysis of the returns to self-employment. Journal of Political economy, 108(3), pp.604-631.

[2]Levine, R. and Rubinstein, Y., 2013. Does entrepreneurship pay. The Michael Bloombergs, the Hot Dog Vendors, and the Returns to Self-Employment.

Don't.

Manage your career, invest in yourself, save and invest where you can. Enjoy life.

I get paid very well to be technical, and thats how I prefer it.

There are literally a thousand other ways without going the VC route.

The society is pretty dysfunctional that a talented person such as yourself think that’s that’s the only way out.

This applies in the small (writing a few lines of code) and in the large (designing an architecture).

Professionally it’s my experience that there is almost always something more challenging to attempt than what you are comfortable with, and that these challenges and the growth that comes with them can be carved up into very realistic, incremental, and achievable pieces.

Good luck!

Yes, at least always be open to it and looking for it. You need to meet new people who have an itch that you can scratch. People with deep pockets.

> should I stay and keep growing myself?

If you are happy with where you are and what you are doing, sure, but it sounds like you are ready to move on. You'll grow more with more experience at different companies / systems. You definitely need to learn to build system from scratch if you haven't already.

> am I underpaid? I mean, will I be able to get a better salary if I find a better fit?

Yes, probably by about 25-100%, depending on market.

> should I pursue a master's degree?

Probably not. You learn way more on the streets. Not having a Bachelor's is sometimes a blocker to bigger things, but Master's, not so much. You get a much better education in the field.

The thing with 'growth' is that tiny little man inside your head you were raised with - ignore him

think like a cave man - if the mammal(current stuff) still exist until I longer/resign, I'll will stay

If this mammal extinct(e.g. program language) - evolve

You have everything - which makes really (life)happy

Life is not your Job - Its your Life

If a nice opportunity looks around, peek into it, maybe its worth a change

choose wisely at this point

If you are sad everyone else is sad, maybe you lose everything because of sadness

To my person I work roughly 20 years in the industry - as a networking guy - raised & built networks you use

I did the unwisely way

Took a unwisely chosen because of indoctrinated emotions and lost everything

If you stay in between - make a clear mind first

hate surprises

The other thing I would say is, save up some money and invest in thing other than tech. In my situation, I wanted to own a restaurant, so I build a cafe in the Rishikesh, India. That gave me a side mission in life, I became more content with my career situation and pushed me to be better and happier.

What I learned is that I need to have something I understand pretty good (biz side) and know how to grow, in addition to expert co-founder(s)

I thought a lot about starting something in non-tech world, but I go back and think that I must invest my knowledge in tech and work on something that I understand and can success in

What do you love about your work now? 5 years as a VP of engineering is impressive for someone with a total of 10 years experience. Are you a great technical leader? Do you enjoy systems?

Maybe list down the things that you're happy with doing, and things that you're able to do which others hate doing.

Why now? May be too late.. but managerial/political stuff has always kept me apart. esp. over-bureaucratizing the "process" towards people. The doubly-faced "you are not a cog but you are part of this machine"

Where can you go if you are already there, succesfully? Probably sideways, and much deeper. Growth doesn't need to be up. (what is "up" anyway?). It can be as size or area or volume.. or number of alternative worldviews/mindsets..

Ask yourself, what is carrer? "growth"? And, what is "interesting"? in your terms.. the answers might surprise you.

Degrees do not matter, except @ some bureaucratic places aka government. But the ways of learning, which you can learn while doing it, do matter.. And it's same with teaching/mentoring - what you learn by doing it, noone can ever tell you. Mind you, half might be 'seems i dont know enough of this to explain it to others'

have fun

Definitely. I'm not sure where you're from, but if you're working for a US firm they should be paying you US wages. I could understand if you were just contracting out piece work, but a VP engineering salary should be double that minimum. The employment market is really hot right now, so just spend some time seeing what's out there.

Some politicians abroad are bragging that their engineers are worth 50K less than the US in their sales pitch. [0]

[0] https://globalnews.ca/news/4178326/amazon-vancouver-tech-wor...

What? The only thing that counts is where you live and pay taxes. If in Europe $65K/€54K after tax is really very decent.

First some context, there is no "win" in life. it is the journey that you will look back on and either be proud of or regret. And understanding that, understand that everyone's journey is different and so it is nearly impossible to compare yourself to others and their journeys and say with certainty your are doing 'better' or 'worse' than them. It is one of the few cases where it really is "all about you" :-)

So should you keep growing yourself? Absolutely. It is how you don't get bored and how you move to the next stage of the journey. Some of the choices you make will be less satisfying and being in the practice of always growing and learning you may find, as I have, that you don't feel 'trapped' by them, instead you just change direction.

Are you underpaid? Who knows? I have known people with the title "VP Engineering" who make literally three times what you are making as a base salary and have a bonus program besides. Not all of them liked their life. One in particular was constantly fighting depression and guilt over how little time they spent with their family and how their non-work relationships suffered. Their life had plenty of money but not enough joy. So it is a balance. My philosophy has always been if I'm making enough to cover my needs (current and projected), and I've got a life outside of work that is rewarding and enjoyable, then I don't need to change things (at least in compensation).

In my career more money has always come with more expectations and more responsibility, which manifests itself as stress when things are not going as they need to. I have turned down raises and promotions when I knew they wouldn't increase the quality of my life and would likely decrease it.

Should you pursue a Master's degree? If you have the resources and time, it helps with flexibility later. I have known folks who "grew up" in a company, started as an undergrad and were looking for a new job 20 years later. And their experience gave them a masters or PhD level of experience in their area of expertise, but without the certificate any new job was going to assume their expertise was over stated and there would be a 1 - 3 year 'ramp' period at the new job where the new employer got to internalize if they really were as expert as they thought/said.

From a technical perspective, if you're an engineer and get an MBa or business degree that makes you both more valuable and able to 'span' more of an organization. There is only so much you can accomplish as an individual, being able to bring a team together under a single vision gives you a huge boost in what you can get done. To do that you have to be able to talk to everyone in the concepts they understand so that you can clearly articulate a vision they can then help you execute.

Lastly, one trick that a college counselor taught me is to imagine you are doing your dream job or living your dream life. Now write a fictional history of that persons life, like someone reading an introduction of you before a TED talk. Start with the end point and work backwards in the history to where you are right now. It can give you ideas about what your next steps should be.

> Lastly, one trick that a college counselor taught me is to imagine you are doing your dream job or living your dream life. Now write a fictional history of that persons life, like someone reading an introduction of you before a TED talk. Start with the end point and work backwards in the history to where you are right now. It can give you ideas about what your next steps should be.

I'll try it tonight! thank you!

Sure, it's well paid, it's great mental exercise, and good prestige. But it's fairly unlikely you'll be working in that field as opposed to just connecting to AI via an API. For personal development, yes. As a career move, probably not.

that's one of the reasons why I like my existing company, they don't lie, pretty honest and transparent

You can't judge everywhere against US developer wages. The poster doesn't say where they're posting from, so we can't really tell if 65k (presumably USD) is particularly good or bad for where they live. Here in the UK, 65k USD would be a fairly typical senior developer salary. Maybe even a little higher than average for people outside of London.

If they could get a role employed by a US company rather than one that's outsourcing then it'd be fair to say they're underpaid, but there could be a whole lot of reasons why that might not be reasonable or even possible.

Money is important, but it's not my only motivation

I have a Mini-MBA from a popular business school. I feel that I have enough business skills from my mini-mba

I don't have a passive income but working on it

You live in an elite bubble full of rich Americans I suspect.