People who used to work in software but transitioned to a different career, what are you doing now and how did you get there?

@zkamvar I went into software straight out of college, went to a few different companies of different sizes. After a long while, left to do contracting work.

While I was getting that set up, I started drawing furry porn as a hobby and eventually a few critters asked me about commissions. Realized that drawing pornography for strangers on the Internet was more emotionally satisfying and was more interesting and made me feel like I was doing more good than all of my contracting work.

@zkamvar Spent a while second guessing it (I make *way* less money now), but then the AI nonsense started up and I feel like getting out of software allowed me to dodge one of the biggest bullets in my entire career.

I went from making more money than I knew what to do with to struggling to pay rent, and I've never been happier.