A lot of the happiness or unhappiness that people have in jobs tends to be situationally specific. Thus, maybe if you took on a similar job at a different organization you wouldn’t find it so burdensome.
With the enormous caveat that I don’t know all the details about your preferences and life situation, I think that Staying in my role or org—or do a lateral switch to a similar org would be the best option. You preserve some optionality (you can always quit or switch if/when you feel that you have hit a ceiling), you are able to continue to build your career capital and your financial capital (both of which can be deployed for positive impact), there are benefits to being associated with an established organization (not just benefits/perks, but also networks, social respect, and the assessment/judgement that people make of an individual based on organizational affiliation).
If you really don’t enjoy all of the coaching, delegation, and general people management that comes with your role (Your “people, ugh” comment made me laugh), then it will probably be challenging to find a senior-level role that you’d be happy with. A big part of greater authority, influence, power, and impact in organizations tends to flow through people. There are exceptions of course, but it does seems to be the most common situation. A few off the top of my head ideas:
Perhaps you could find some sort of subject matter expert role, where you are a senior-level technical specialist, and you don’t have to do much ‘people stuff.’
Or maybe you could hire somebody to tag-team some of these tasks with you. Many organizations have HRBPs, but you might be able to hire an executive assistant, or even to partner with someone so that you are able to offload some of the tasks that you dislike. Imagine if somebody else could handle even just 40% or 50% of the hiring, developing, promoting, off-boarding, reallocating people, and building alignment?
There might also be some level of tailoring your role, if you speak to your manager and tell them that you enjoy the role overall but some parts of it are things that bring you down. Maybe your job responsibilities could be adjusted.
Unless you have a very special situation, I would lean against a career reset (from an impact-focused perspective). You might find it challenging for people to give you a junior-level role doing something that you have never done before, or something that you haven’t been focused on for many years. Do you actually have the skills to be competitive as a data scientist in a tech startup (or in some other role?), or would you need to get a few years of training and then complete alongside fresh grads?
It is really hard to find a high-impact volunteer role.
Do you actually have the skills to be competitive as a data scientist in a tech startup (or in some other role?), or would you need to get a few years of training and then complete alongside fresh grads?
This is a crux.
Another factor to consider is that junior software engineering roles seem to be getting more competitive. I’m not sure how much of this is attributable to macroeconomic cycle stuff vs AI automation reducing demand vs increasing supply of people qualified for these jobs.
A lot of the happiness or unhappiness that people have in jobs tends to be situationally specific. Thus, maybe if you took on a similar job at a different organization you wouldn’t find it so burdensome.
With the enormous caveat that I don’t know all the details about your preferences and life situation, I think that Staying in my role or org—or do a lateral switch to a similar org would be the best option. You preserve some optionality (you can always quit or switch if/when you feel that you have hit a ceiling), you are able to continue to build your career capital and your financial capital (both of which can be deployed for positive impact), there are benefits to being associated with an established organization (not just benefits/perks, but also networks, social respect, and the assessment/judgement that people make of an individual based on organizational affiliation).
If you really don’t enjoy all of the coaching, delegation, and general people management that comes with your role (Your “people, ugh” comment made me laugh), then it will probably be challenging to find a senior-level role that you’d be happy with. A big part of greater authority, influence, power, and impact in organizations tends to flow through people. There are exceptions of course, but it does seems to be the most common situation. A few off the top of my head ideas:
Perhaps you could find some sort of subject matter expert role, where you are a senior-level technical specialist, and you don’t have to do much ‘people stuff.’
Or maybe you could hire somebody to tag-team some of these tasks with you. Many organizations have HRBPs, but you might be able to hire an executive assistant, or even to partner with someone so that you are able to offload some of the tasks that you dislike. Imagine if somebody else could handle even just 40% or 50% of the hiring, developing, promoting, off-boarding, reallocating people, and building alignment?
There might also be some level of tailoring your role, if you speak to your manager and tell them that you enjoy the role overall but some parts of it are things that bring you down. Maybe your job responsibilities could be adjusted.
Unless you have a very special situation, I would lean against a career reset (from an impact-focused perspective). You might find it challenging for people to give you a junior-level role doing something that you have never done before, or something that you haven’t been focused on for many years. Do you actually have the skills to be competitive as a data scientist in a tech startup (or in some other role?), or would you need to get a few years of training and then complete alongside fresh grads?
It is really hard to find a high-impact volunteer role.
This is a crux.
Another factor to consider is that junior software engineering roles seem to be getting more competitive. I’m not sure how much of this is attributable to macroeconomic cycle stuff vs AI automation reducing demand vs increasing supply of people qualified for these jobs.