…like almost everyone in IT I know including myself. The work felt meaningful, you were satisfied, long hours and deadlines were not a problem, you loved learning new things and challenges. Some people will enjoy the thrill and go smoothly from one stage to another (whatever it can be) till the end of their career. Others, however, reach a point, where they look into their path so far, evaluate the future prospects, and start pondering a question why they do not feel so fulfilled anymore.

Everyone is affected differently depending on the experience, life events, personality, vales, family situation, etc. You may start feeling disappointment, stress, or a need for change because of:

• Lack of work-life balance (though I would prefer to talk about work-life separation), caused by working overtime and under high pressure, deteriorates the amount of time and energy people can put into cherishing relations with families and friends, or enjoying hobbies or pure leisure activities. Eventually stress can impact their physical and mental health, including anxiety and depression.

• The infamous burnout can hit if people are overworked and exhausted, but the factors that contribute and in general lower motivation and morality come from the environment in their workplace. People may feel that there are limited opportunities for career development and growth; they get no recognition, feel no support from their managers and teams.

• The rate of technology changes has never been so high and there are no signs of slowing down. And as much as people in IT like challenges and broadening knowledge, constant pressure to keep up with the technological changes may lead to overwhelming stress seeing the breadth of knowledge required to be learned and adopted. It’s becoming more challenging to stay relevant in the field and, in some cases, do not feel disposable.

• Sometimes the need for change just grows slowly, regardless if it is caused by changing life philosophy with passing years or just not finding in the work what one expected to find. It can be a myriad things: desire for more meaningful and impactful work, need for more creativity, interest of engaging in different passions, or becoming an own boss and starting a business.

• Many people start asking existential questions in some points in their lives, and their work in IT may be one of the sources of feeling that their life values are not aligned with the industry direction: increased social impact without considering social good, data privacy practices, environmental impact, ageism.