I love you all. Wow. What a group, what a collection of perspectives.

I'm not top-tier, not in your league at all. Not dumb, but a bit late in getting organized.

I worked for a state government. For too long, trying to make it work. Then on July 7, 2005 I quit my job after deciding that I'd rather die than keep working there. Haven't worked since, as it turned out. Squeaked by somehow, since I always lived within my means and was good at saving money.

In 2011 I took early Social Security, and that thousand a month coming in was a huge relief. Way better than zero. My defined-benefit state pension kicked in during 2014, doubling my income, and now I live in Cuenca, Ecuador and am starting over at age 73, though not really worried about an income. Mostly it's about the learning, and developing skills I never got to before.

And I have learned more about life in the last 10 years than all the time before that, mostly via thinking things over. Of course, now that I'm smart, I'd do everything differently. Radically. If I had the chance.

A couple of days back I looked up a guy I used to work with. He was a young intranet webmaster at [state agency]. Since then he got into the Agile/Scrum world and made a really good living from it. Been all over state government as a contractor, and other places, like Microsoft, and even got to Australia, etc. Good for him. He decided to focus on a thing, own it, and run with it. I've always dithered. My loss.

A thought: If you haven't checked it out yet, take a look at "The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master". See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pragmatic_Programmer and https://pragprog.com/titles/tpp20/the-pragmatic-programmer-2... for info

From my experience...

* The real issue probably isn't finding the right job or company but finding the right people, including the right person within yourself. It always comes down to the people.

* If the Pointy Headed Boss doesn't understand it, then it can't be that important.

* Especially for a small/non-technical company, you are hired help, like a plumber or electrician -- maybe useful from time to time to do some obscure dirty thing but still just another manual laborer.

* From a non-technical boss to me, about a technical issue: I've dealt with people like you before -- you always see it as black and white, but we need more shades of gray.

* There is likely no general solution. What's right for you may not be right for anyone else.

* A well-run company is a well-run run company. That's the fundamental fundamental.

* No-code software is a tool to solve problems. To be of any use it has to be driven by someone who knows how to think, which is what a programmer is.

* The contractor who built one client-server system I worked on needed three more months to finish it. Nope -- had to meet the deadline. So three of us spent two years slapping patches on it. And all three of us left before it was working as promised.

* Words of wisdom from some of my (former) co-workers, none of whom were part of any solution, ever: (1) If it ain't broke, don't fix it. (2) We've never done it that way. (3) Wait.

Some choice thoughts from the comments here:

* "Very few passions survive contact with the industrialized version of their craft."

* "Programming is a tool. Computers are tools. You're not getting paid to program. You're getting paid to solve some problem for your employer by programming."

* "I realized that the problem is inside of my mind...It took me many years to finaly come to the deep realization that sitting down by yourself and brutaly examining my own problems that the mind generates is the only way forward."

* "What I hate about the industry is politics, short-term thinking, selfishness, dogmatism and other forms of irrationality."

* "There is next to nothing being produced today that I care about at all. I don't play games, I hardly ever use my smart phone..."

* "I try to bring a sense of craftsmanship to my work."

* "I thought I was the only one."