Why I Left Software Development for Nearly a Decade โ€” and What Brought Me Back

Early in my career, I spent countless late nights rewriting code to meet shifting requirements and looming deadlines. Overtime became routine, and I often wondered if I was cut out for the industry.

Frustration and the threat of burnout eventually led me to leave software development entirely for nearly a decade. I sought roles where the only qualifier was โ€˜coding not requiredโ€™.

It wasnโ€™t until I worked a business analyst that I understood what was going wrong: poor communication and a failure to align on shared goals. Developers donโ€™t fail because of a lack of skillโ€”they fail when theyโ€™re forced to work in the basement and code in the dark.

Armed with this insight, I returned to software development โ€” not just to write better code, but to advocate for better requirements. The approach: closer collaboration and trusted interactions.

Itโ€™s not so much a commercial proposition Iโ€™m selling, but more like starting a movement or finding a tribe. Perhaps itโ€™s simply aspiring to make things better for all the developers out there, whom I still feel a personal affiliation with.

Honestly, are we any closer to true collaboration between developers and the business than we were ten years ago?

Iโ€™m not sure how far weโ€™ve come, but I know thereโ€™s still work to be done.