I am in my mid 30s. I have been working in tech for about 15 years and I have decided that it is time for me to work on my exit from the industry. I have enough money, I see burnout in my future, and I know that my next step in my life is to work more with people and less with/about computers. I am going back to school to pursue a more humanities-based degree in the fall.
My ideal plan would be to continue working for my current employer while I take night classes. However, I am currently a senior dev with a large number of responsibilities. My current work load takes ~50 hours of my time per week, and I just won't have that much to dedicate while I am going to school.
Does anyone here have experience with trying to negotiate with their employer to take a lower-level position? In theory it seems straightforward: pay me like an entry-level engineer, and I'll pump out a few API updates/bug fixes each week. I'll be a better deal than an 'actual' entry-level coder since I won't need hand holding and will probably push fewer bugs. If I worked full-time at Starbucks and said "Hey, I'd like to work half the hours for half the pay" my manager would do it without blinking.
However, I feel from my time in this industry that trying to negotiate such a deal won't be easy. I sense that there is an unwritten rule in tech that everyone is working as hard as they can, and I've never really met a management chain that could handle an IC who is good at saying "no, that's too much work right now". There is also a myth that one should only hire candidates with growth potential, even though we have all worked with entry level coders that obviously do not have this potential.
Thoughts?
My ideal plan would be to continue working for my current employer while I take night classes. However, I am currently a senior dev with a large number of responsibilities. My current work load takes ~50 hours of my time per week, and I just won't have that much to dedicate while I am going to school.
Does anyone here have experience with trying to negotiate with their employer to take a lower-level position? In theory it seems straightforward: pay me like an entry-level engineer, and I'll pump out a few API updates/bug fixes each week. I'll be a better deal than an 'actual' entry-level coder since I won't need hand holding and will probably push fewer bugs. If I worked full-time at Starbucks and said "Hey, I'd like to work half the hours for half the pay" my manager would do it without blinking.
However, I feel from my time in this industry that trying to negotiate such a deal won't be easy. I sense that there is an unwritten rule in tech that everyone is working as hard as they can, and I've never really met a management chain that could handle an IC who is good at saying "no, that's too much work right now". There is also a myth that one should only hire candidates with growth potential, even though we have all worked with entry level coders that obviously do not have this potential.
Thoughts?