You can read my post above “Yes you can, I did.” and I have a response to this comment. Yes, you will need to move back in terms of seniority and pay, most likely. Yes, you probably will need to give up a career growth path. Those are the trade-offs that you’ll have to make and you will have to choose what you value more. I found that after a time I no longer found the leadership roles fulfilling like they initially were, and missed the joy of coding, Getting into the zone, being focused, building something great. Technical work and leadership work is just so different and lots of coders realise that they don’t like it as much. I recently had a conversation with my manager and he asked me what my plans for career growth were. Did I want to move to leadership? My first answer was “no plans at all”, I want to stay where I was. It felt pretty good, but confused him, so I explained that I wanted to be technical and only technical. No managing people, no writing compliance reports, no convincing potential investors of our technical excellence. Been there, done that. So, we put together a plan to build my technical skills instead and we are both happy with that. Shifting back to technical work was great for me, but for anyone it really depends on what you value and how you see yourself over the next few years. Check your values and think about it.

I am 51 years old, started out as a software developer and have worked as a director of development and CTO. I also did a couple of years as an agile coach. I got tired of all of that work and also got tired of saying to myself, "I will just write code when I retire". Because I love doing it. So I quit my job and got another job as a software developer. I earn about half as much as I used to, but I look forward to going to work everyday. I've been writing code again for about 2 years, and wouldn't go back ever. Fortunately, I've been saving and don't need to worry about retirement. So it really doesn't matter how much I earn, as long as I'm happy doing what I do. So, go for it. From a technology perspective, I moved to a completely new tech stack and have been developing skills and knowledge there. This is part of the reason why I need to take a salary cut, is because I had to re-train. Now, all of the previous technical knowledge that I developed during my career I am now using fully, that I am up to speed in the new tech stack.