I wish I could live that way, but I am still trying to get a job as an Engineering Manager again since I genuinely enjoyed the work the same way I enjoy playing excel sheet simulators like EU IV, but the position has been annihilated or halved in a lot of firms.

I have taken the time to try and drop back down to just an IC engineer again but have been explicitly told that I either, was trusted to be able to do the job since I became a manager, or that they didn't trust that I would stay around since I had already reach manager level.

Most companies seem to be applying the heuristics of the pre 2022 era for software to prospective employees, while still demanding the benefits of this new era.

Hell I see a ton of people in this post talking about how referrals are the only way to get real signal, and I had two different Principal Engineers respectively at Riot and a financial firm too niche to name without outing myself refer me and not even get a phone screen. With said friends who referred me getting a brick wall from their HR department when trying to follow up.

The hiring system for tech is fundamentally broken atm, but companies are the ones with only leverage.