Comment by jbreckmckye

I'm nowhere near as senior as you (12 years). But I've reflected on this a lot recently. I love the technology and feeling like I'm building things, but staying hands on will always limit your scope. Taking the management path improves your scope but the work is - well - just less fun than programming.

My answer right now is to try and build more things myself. Small apps, CLIs, retro games. Not libraries or much OSS stuff so much as actual "products" that give me creative control and concrete outputs. It's hard to make the time though.

Outside of my career I'm also trying to cultivate other works, like my YouTube channel and my writing. Creating a video that 250k people enjoy is at least as meaningful to me as crushing my OKRs

We are all mortal beings: there will inevitably be more things to do than time to do it, and it's easier to ruminate on options than commit to something that feels "suboptimal".

To give an example of that. I spent a lot of time wondering if I should have gone into academia / literary criticism rather than tech, because of a vague sense that because I was very good at something, that's where I should put my efforts. Is that sound reasoning though? I probably achieved more "value" for society working as a programmer, than writing about Chaucer.

So to summarise it may be a choice of making peace with the lower scope / autonomy of hands on work, and finding that satisfaction outside work. If that suggestion makes your soul revolt, though, it may be you have to compromise and take the managerial path