Software Engineer here planning on changing to nursing soon.
I enjoy the problems. That is when it’s a problem that I find interesting. But honestly, that is not what the work is. While in school, the assignments always piqued my interest. It was always some math problem or data structure building. But in real life software engineering is more of plugging together other companies’ work together, and then spend 60% of your time debugging/ reading manuals in order to get it to function properly.
I decided on software engineering because I wanted to travel, and I knew I could get a job anywhere in the states that I wanted. Unfortunately, the software engineering world is a bit more rigid than I originally thought. I’ve mostly worked in Python, but I’ve worked on projects in C, Java, etc. The interview process is probably the most exhausting of any industry. And convincing absolutely every single company that “yes, learning this specific framework is not hard. I know how to code, you don’t need a specialty to do this work.” Then get rejected 10 times because I don’t have super specific x experience.
I’m switching to nursing so that I can:
1. Work a schedule that I think I’ll enjoy more (3-12s)
2. Travel easier (travel nursing 3 months at a time)
3. Have a job that is less cerebrally demanding (I imagine people will fight me on this, but I’m going to say you’re wrong)
4. I can move up to private practice with Masters.
5. Still FIRE in a reasonable amount of time.
6. The job is hourly not salaried
7. I’ll be able to downshift to part-time easy just about anywhere that I want to.
I do feel that shame or regret that I shouldn’t complain about a job that is only 40 hours, has no dangers or risks, pays well, and is challenging. And expressing the kind of stress and strain that I take on is very hard to describe without sounding like a complainy pants. But it’s that day-in and day-out consistent nagging stress. The problem that your working on today will be there tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after. You grind on a computer problem for weeks at a time. You work for a company that is a middle man to arbitrage millions of dollars from a particular industry you don’t care about, but you don’t see any of it yourself.
Anyway, I don’t want to make this post overly long, but hopefully that gives some insight. Engineering despite it’s pay and office environment is a slow burn of consistent stress, and too often it’s difficult to move to part-time, or take long leave of absences. Or quit and then come back 3 years later. All of which add to the stress. The stress of “I can’t quit until I’m done”.