I left my "Insert Big Tech Company Here" job a few months ago out of sheer misery. There were just so many people working on so much Nothing that any attempt to get things to operate By The Book was met with skepticism and outright conflict. It just became too taxing to wake up in the morning and I felt like I was withering away. Couldn't transfer teams, couldn't make it work with my boss and so I just decided fuck it, can't do this anymore, I'm gone.

Now as I'm assessing what to do with my life, the idea of jumping back into all of this is giving me existential anxiety. This is an industry that is ACTIVELY attempting to automate the humans away. Whether successfully or not, that's an at scale, publicly acknowledge, leading effort of the industry and the only cope most people can seem to come up with is "Well it'll never happen" or "I'm too good to be replaced" or something about Luddites and I'd really prefer not to play that game. Whether it is successful or not, it's now baked into what Big Tech is trying to accomplish and I just don't see how I can comfortably exist in the world. It gives me the creeps.

I don't have much of a network to ask for advice and in fact, "advice" is more personal than I maybe expect. Anecdotally or personally, what are the options for someone like myself? How do you get away from Big Tech when that's all you've done so far? Can I become a fireman? Do people in their 30s go back to school with no income and make a living thereafter? I'm sure there is an example of every possibility but any words of wisdom from a community that must have been in a similar situation would be appreciated.