Non-SaaS jobs for overly anxious devs?

Question

Posting from a throwaway account.I'll admit it, I'm tired of working on SaaS software. Just mentally and physically exhausted. The always-on nature weighs on me constantly, waiting for something to break (even though it mostly never does). No amount of testing, monitoring, and reliable architecture design allows me to breathe easier. I won't get in trouble if something breaks, it is just my own catastrophizing of a future, hypothetical situation that is bringing me down.Because of this, I simply don't want to work in SaaS anymore (at least for a detox period). I'm wondering what the realistic options are to stay employed in software development, but in a more disconnected/offline mode that better suits my personality (I know we all have differing degrees of anxiety, OCD-like symptoms, imposter syndrome, you name it- not looking for mindfulness or meds to solve anything here, although it is related to the ultimate goal of improving my emotional and physical health).Curious to hear about anyone who went through a similar SaaS anxiety rut, and if you found a role that got you out of it to live a more carefree life outside of work hours. Should I be looking at offline (gasp, installable) software, systems software, something else? The ultimate dream would be going solopreneur a la Sublime HQ, but that isn't in the cards at the moment (and is likely a shared pipedream by many of us).Thanks for any insights!

matijash · Accepted Answer

I see how working on a SaaS can be exhausting, I have experienced it myself multiple times. Even if the SaaS had no users yet, there was a pressure from the founders to get a lot features quickly etc. Although on the other hand, it depends a lot on the company itself and its founders. I know a SaaS where founders are hard-core & experienced engineers themselves, and they understand and work with their team much better, because they know what they can expect.
From my (limited) perspective and experience, "deeper" you go (closer to the research, or put in simpler words, less people understand what you do :D), less direct outside pressure is put on you. Which is kinda logical, often when non-dev people can visualise the end result (and believe they understand it) they get impatient and cannot understand "why does it take so long to get it done".
So I would say these might be the important factors: 1) Founders coming from the engineering/scientific background 2) More hard-tech work domain (e.g. crypto, AI/ML (although a lot of fakeness here), system performance, compilers, ...) 3) Bigger company/institution that can afford to work on such problems