I posted this question on the BlindApp the other day and got some interesting responses. Essentially after doing HW( Background is EE with a Masters) work for a decade, getting burnout after working at a very toxic FAANG(one that has a particular reputation here in the valley though they are HQed in Seattle) i am currently working for much less than what I can make unable to score interviews at the likes of Apple or Google for similar roles. Spoke to a few friends who suggested that I look into pivoting into software. About a year ago i started with Python just for fun. At that time I couldn't code my way out of a brown bag. Fast forward After a year, I am doing a few deeplearning courses on coursera and fast.ai platform able to read and understand non-trivial popular open source python libraries . I even have a Google recruiter badgering me to interview for a SW engineer role. But the thing I keep coming back to is, Am I making the right decision by pivoting to SW. All the talk of ageism in the other thread is not boosting my confidence either. I need to decide right now as I am not getting any younger and if management is the path for the 40s I need to embrace that and move on. Any insights would be much appreciated.