Comment by phendrenad2

Do not transition to SWE thinking it will be more "interesting" or "fun". Although it appears to the outside that SWE is more interesting/fun, that's only true at junior levels, when no one expects anything out of you. If you want to progress in your career, you will have to transition to a senior engineer (needs to get things done with the least creativity possible) or management (spends all day in meetings). Every career path leads to this, even data science.