zwkrt

I am in my mid 30s. I have been working in tech for about 15 years and I have decided that it is time for me to work on my exit from the industry. I have enough money, I see burnout in my future, and I know that my next step in my life is to work more with people and less with/about computers. I am going back to school to pursue a more humanities-based degree in the fall.

My ideal plan would be to continue working for my current employer while I take night classes. However, I am currently a senior dev with a large number of responsibilities. My current work load takes ~50 hours of my time per week, and I just won't have that much to dedicate while I am going to school.

Does anyone here have experience with trying to negotiate with their employer to take a lower-level position? In theory it seems straightforward: pay me like an entry-level engineer, and I'll pump out a few API updates/bug fixes each week. I'll be a better deal than an 'actual' entry-level coder since I won't need hand holding and will probably push fewer bugs. If I worked full-time at Starbucks and said "Hey, I'd like to work half the hours for half the pay" my manager would do it without blinking.

However, I feel from my time in this industry that trying to negotiate such a deal won't be easy. I sense that there is an unwritten rule in tech that everyone is working as hard as they can, and I've never really met a management chain that could handle an IC who is good at saying "no, that's too much work right now". There is also a myth that one should only hire candidates with growth potential, even though we have all worked with entry level coders that obviously do not have this potential.

Thoughts?