What is Your Career Transition Story?(Within Software)

There are so many inspiring stories of people getting into the software industry later in life - learning to code in a self-taught way and getting a job as a programmer.

There are also many people who've been in the software industry for a while (10+ years) who've felt stuck in their roles. And they are also transitioning and finding their path to roles that better suit their strengths, interests, and lifestyle. I am curious to hear more of those stories. Especially those where the goal is to still have a role that has something to do with code (i.e. didn't transition out of coding to managing or something).

I know devs who've transitioned from programmer at a company to

• freelance, consultancy
• teaching (programming courses to books to bootcamp teachers)
• bootstrapping their own internet business
• developer advocate, conference speaker, author and such

Or starting a community for developers and maintaining the open source codebase behind that :)

I transitioned from being an embedded firmware engineer programming implantable medical devices to a full-stack web developer working in a health tech startup after 8 years. (very different worlds, plan to write more about this later on)

I would love to hear your career transition story within SW. What steps did you take to navigate through the unknowns and find your way to a role that you now enjoy? How did you find the mental energy to do this? How did you learn what was even possible?

(with this thread I am hoping to illuminate paths that could perhaps inspire someone who is feeling stuck in their current role).