This is a very rich-world view of work. Most people can't just "unilaterally rescind" their employment if they decide they don't like it anymore.
I don't disagree with what you're getting at, just understand that loyalty is a necessity to a lot of folks, and I don't think it is because their values are misplaced.
I've seen this software used on a couple different video lesson platforms (I am currently subscribed to Open Studio). It works really well. Occasional browser funniness, but otherwise a really solid tool for learning music. Great work!
> Getting a different job in a startup or an agency sounds like the last thing I want right now. From what I’ve heard big tech is not all that much different, and a non-tech programming job sounds like it’d be boring/horrible in a different way.
Here's the thing. Every job is a job. Even "doing what you love" comes with days when you really don't feel like doing it. There is no perfect job that will contain all the things you like about work and none of the things you don't like about work.
Furthermore, you will never ever get the first years of your kid(s) life back. You should be present for those years. Being burnt out and hating your job does not leave you the mental bandwidth to be present.
Taking a less glamorous job to make space in your life for other pursuits is not bad. Even if it's just for little while to reset. And have some perspective: you can enjoy some aspects of a job without enjoying all aspects. Pick what is most important for you and optimize for that. And the most important aspect is not fixed; it will change depending on your season in life.
I don't think I've ever been actually burnt out, but I have experienced the gamut of job satisfaction. You break out of it through self-reflection and understanding what you actually like and dislike about a job, and what really matters to you in life and how to build around that.
We used to have unlimited PTO, and even in my interview I chided them that it's obviously not "unlimited".
For a small, organically growing firm like my employer, unlimited PTO is just shorthand for "we don't have the back office staff to track this, so just don't abuse it". Yes, totally subjective, but the point is when you're scrappy you don't have time to make Policy all the livelong day.
As we've grown and evolved we ditched the messaging of unlimited PTO because of the negative connotation it has that everyone here has rightfully pointed out. "Does unlimited mean none?" is a verbatim question I've fielded in an interview.
Anyway, I explain OP's question as what I call the career trifecta:
1. You are working on things that have meaning to you
2. You enjoy working with the people around you
3. The pay and benefits give you space to pursue life's other interests
Most people in the world don't get one of those, much less all three. I have all three and now I'm a spoiled brat and don't want to give up one of them to get more of the other (i.e., more salary doesn't make life better if you lose one of the other pillars).
> a rational person will blame the repairer, not Apple
Assumes facts not in evidence. My experience has been people tend to blame the platform supplier first and foremost.
1990s OEM computer maker loads a bunch of crapware on your PC? You're likely to blame Microsoft Windows.
SimCity doesn't run on Windows 95 because of a bug in SimCity? You're likely to blame Windows 95. Microsoft at least understood that dynamic.
iPhone acting weird? Apple's fault, obviously, no questions asked. It's the default position of consumers.
I agree with your assertion that this is a knock on the Apple brand for a certain subset of their audience. I don't think it matters to the lay user as much as it does to the power user.
Rather than looking at titles, I would focus on what you want to do.
"Software dev" encompasses a wide variety of work. As a simplified example, if you were a senior frontend JS dev who wanted to get into writing kernel modules, you might have to take a job title and/or pay cut since you're less senior in that niche than your current one. But if you really want to be a kernel dev, it might be worthwhile.
So, what do you want to do? What kind of dev do you want to be? Will the new gig get you closer to that, regardless of title? Thinking beyond just tech stack to how you want this arc of your career to progress, will new job be better?
Also look at non-tech stack things. Do you like your team? Do you like your industry? Has your boss treated you well? Do you have equity opportunities at current or new gig? Which stack/niche has a higher ceiling of potential opportunity?
Did you tell them you could build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem?
You can make changes today that will pay dividends in 10 years, so maybe focus on that instead.
I was widowed pretty young (as widowers go), so I have done my share of playing the what-if game with the past. Ultimately it is not a productive exercise, and I try not to do it. If I catch myself dwelling in unlived lives, I try to refocus on the one still in front of me.
> Meanwhile, everything interesting/challenging I might have liked to work on is already being worked on by someone else, who is probably doing a better job than I would have
You may be surprised to learn how false and limiting this belief is. Turns out most of those people are also just winging it, so if you wing it too, hey, you may actually reach a better outcome.
My kids will be in 9th and 7th grade. My school district is starting 100% distance learning. I did opt for hybrid when it's available.
I'm setting up study areas in the house for the kids that are away from each other and me. I'm going to get comfortable headphones for their school-issued Chromebooks.
The plan is instructional blocks that include webinars, basically, along with some study time with the teacher available online. They can come up to my office if they have questions as well.
I built out my home office to mirror my work office this past spring, so I'm pretty well setup to be a remote employee and hopefully the quiet spaces I setup for the kids will be good for their remote learning.
This is a good question to ask regardless of your career. It's a combination of factors: specialization narrowing the range of possible jobs, experience tending to command a higher salary, and flat-out age discrimination.
You will likely have peak earning years, and that means earnings will decline post-peak. For most people this is true, not everybody.
If you know this is a likely pattern, you can do something about it. Namely, live below your means, invest, bank raises, keep a lid on lifestyle inflation, and accept that some day you will take a job that pays less than your previous job and that this change should not be ruinous.
Stay private. I don't think publicly traded companies can be values-driven, but if you maintain control over the ownership of the company, you can. Here I'm thinking of something like Wegman's grocery stores.
If Wegman's went public and had to meet the demands of Wall Street investors, I think they would lose what makes them special.
I can't think of an example of a large, closely held firm in tech.
The chip is nearly 100% reliable (absent any manufacturing defects). It's the network in the U.S. that is stuck in the 1970s. Even with the supposed requirement to move to chip terminals, I still come across so many merchants who either (1) don't even have a chip reader, or (2) have a little sticky note on the payment terminal that says "chip broken".
What's really surprising is when a new store opens (restaurant, typically), and they don't have a chip reader on day one. They still swipe.
I've had my card skimmed more times than I can count over the decades. That we're still dealing with this problem in 2019 is maddening.