Ask HN: Advice needed: Career Pivot? (Long)
(Posting with a throwaway account. My normal HN username would be immediately recognizable to anyone who knows me, and I'd just as soon not advertise the fact that I'm thinking about making changes or that I've entertained other job offers)

tl;dr version: I'm an older S/W engineer. I'm very good at what I do. I've worked for a successful DoD contractor start up for quite a while. I'm bored. I'm interested in CG/VFX and also in prop-trading/HFT. I've had offers from both fields, but I declined them. Looking back, I wished I'd taken them. I'm more than ready for a change. What do I do now?

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Basic facts: I'm forty-<mumble> years of age; married, no kids; I've been working as a software engineer/devop for many, many years; I know a lot about: C,C++/STL/Boost,Linux,bash,perl,python,node.js,etc; I've been with the same company (a very successful and rapidly growing DoD contractor) for the last 12 or so years; I was a very early employee at said company; as this company continues to grow and mature, I find it more and more boring to work there. Because of my waning interest, I don't see much opportunity for career growth (eg. management) (however, I do have great job security as it is).

So, I think a lot about pivoting my career into a new domain. At this stage of my career/life, this amounts to major changes involving my work, my family, and my future, and so of course I'm turning to complete strangers for advice.

Here are my interests/options:

Option A: stay put. Pros: Indefinite job security; very good salary, ridiculously good benefits; low(-ish) pressure; interesting low-level technical work; chance (slim) that the company will be bought up by one of the big DoD contractors and I'll get a large-ish payout. Cons: minuscule bonuses; domain is mature and not all that exciting to me any more; definitely not interested in moving into management; the DoD doesn't have all that many truly smart people, so it's frustrating to deal with customers; I've been waiting for this mythical payout for years, and I no longer think it will ever happen; I really feel like I'm starting to stagnate professionally, and that it's time for a change.

Option B: cinema CG/VFX. I'm utterly fascinated by this stuff. I'm not much of an artist, but there is a lot of tech work in this domain. Judging by the job postings, I think I'd be good for a "Pipeline TD" or "Studio Tools" type of position. (Full disclosure: Several years ago, I turned down (what turned out to be) a decent offer from a major, household-name animation studio, and I've regretted it ever since.) Pros: enthusiasm; working with creative types (this is huge for me); enough interest to sustain a career path into management; seemingly many places to work for; movie magic, name in credits, etc. Cons: definite pay cut (the offer was a good 15% lower than my salary at the time, but I was ready to absorb the cut (my wife wasn't)); probably small (if any) bonuses; it's a high-pressure job; unsure that someone my age can pivot into the industry; everybody wants to work in the movies, so there's downward pressure on salaries; relocation to locales that may be a hard sell to my wife; maybe I'm wearing rose-colored glasses here.

Option C: Prop-Trading/HFT. About three years ago, I had a good offer from a (non-HFT) prop trading boutique shop, in a location I like. I was ready to accept when the founders of my current company made me aware of the possible payout (which they claimed was imminent). In retrospect, I should have taken the offer. (The good news is that this shop may still hire me.) Pros: I'm getting a lot of interest on LinkedIn from prop-trading houses, which is gratifying; my skillset & experience seems to slot right into the field; very interesting technical challenges; possibility of astounding bonuses: I have friends working in banking, and they pull down a ton of bonus, and even in a "not-good" year, the bonuses would beat the bonuses I make now; binary metric of success is appealing: either you make money or you lose it. Cons: Not interested in relocating to NYC or Chicago (nice places to visit, though); can be very high-pressure; high dollars tend to attract douchebags, which are no fun to work with (to be sure, though, there are some extremely interesting non-douchbags in the field); unsure of the career path beyond writing software; I don't have nearly the enthusiasm for this as I do the CG/VFX stuff.

I should clarify that the company I currently work for is a very good company to be employed by. I can't find any faults, other then the normal faults that any software development company has. The point here is that I'm bored of the problem domain in general. There is just no new ground for me to mine here, other than management, which I just can't do (for this company).

I was content for a long time in my career to simply design and build software. I'm good at it and I enjoy it. But I've reached the point where I want more from my career, and if I'm to achieve that, then I'll need to dive into something that I'm enthusiastic about and that will take me beyond software development. Clearly, if I could turn the clock back a few years, I'd head off in the CG/VFX direction. I don't know how realistic that option is anymore. One thing's for certain, though: I do need a change. I really like working with creative types, but by latching onto the CG/VFX domain, maybe I've got my vision too narrowed. Maybe there's other options.

At any rate, thanks for reading. Any comments appreciated.