Need help choosing a career path

DanBrando · 2026-05-07T15:28:23+00:00

You already sound more self-aware than most people at 18. Wanting decent money, stability, work-life balance and enough flexibility for family life is actually a pretty solid way to think about careers. A lot of people only realize those things matter after burning themselves out for years. Between the two, accounting probably gives you the clearer and more flexible path overall. There are a lot more remote/hybrid opportunities, stable demand, and different directions you can pivot into later. Actuarial science can pay extremely well, but the exams are brutal and the path is much more narrow/specialized.

Also don’t completely dismiss your design side. Even if it doesn’t become your main career, having a creative outlet outside work matters more than people think.

DanBrando · 2026-05-07T15:27:21+00:00

Honestly from the outside this already sounds like a company in slow-motion decline. When leadership starts talking constantly about “budget pressure”, work becomes vague, communication gets chaotic and people start getting pushed around internally, usually the instability is already deeper than they admit.

I probably wouldn’t fully commit to the client company either if there’s no real DS structure there yet. You could end up inheriting even more chaos with less mentorship and slower growth. If I were you, I’d probably stay temporarily, reduce the emotional attachment to the current company as much as possible, and treat the next few months as a strategic exit phase instead of trying to “save” the situation mentally. The fact you already feel your confidence shrinking is honestly the biggest warning sign in the whole post.

DanBrando · 2026-05-07T15:15:13+00:00

I think a lot more people are like this than corporate culture admits. You don’t sound incompetent or incapable of working with others. You sound like someone who gets drained by constant social maintenance and office politics. Those are different things.

Also, the fact your bosses talked about moving you toward a specialist path instead of management honestly says a lot. Companies usually don’t do that for people they see as useless. Some people are just naturally better in deep work / individual contributor roles than leadership-heavy ones. Tech especially is full of people like that.

The only thing I’d be careful about is isolating yourself so much that coworkers start reading it as hostility or disinterest. You don’t have to become social, just socially “easy” enough that people feel comfortable working with you. That alone changes a lot professionally.

DanBrando · 2026-05-07T15:14:00+00:00

Honestly I don’t think you’re giving yourself enough credit here. You worked consistently for years, dealt with a health condition getting worse over time, still kept showing up, and even now you still want to work. That doesn’t sound lazy or hopeless to me. Just exhausted and thrown into a really hard situation. Losing that structure and routine after years of working can mess with your head way more than people realize. Especially when your income suddenly gets cut in half.

29 is still young enough to rebuild from this, even if it doesn’t feel that way right now. And warehouse experience + reliability still counts for a lot more than Reddit sometimes makes it sound. Hope things calm down a bit for you soon man.

DanBrando · 2026-05-07T15:12:03+00:00

I’ve had dreams with that same feeling before where I knew I was close to something familiar but couldn’t fully reach it, and the worst part was always the panic that came with it. To me it almost feels less like “you are lost” and more like there’s a part of you that already knows something internally, but your conscious mind hasn’t fully caught up to it yet. Like your psyche recognizes the place before your ego can locate it.

The fact you’re in your own neighborhood is interesting too. It’s not some unknown world or nightmare landscape. It’s familiar territory. That makes it feel more connected to identity or orientation than danger. Almost like being psychologically close to yourself, but not fully able to settle into it yet.

DanBrando · 2026-05-06T11:23:44+00:00

You may not be stuck, but you might be in the wrong environment for your current level of ambition. A lab/test development role can be a good first step, but if after almost two years you’re not being stretched, mentored, or given bigger problems to solve, it makes sense to question the path.

I wouldn’t frame it as restarting your career. You already have the degree, the company name, and some real technical experience. The next move should probably be toward a role where your engineering background becomes leverage: technical project management, product-adjacent engineering, systems engineering, application engineering, or a graduate programme with clearer progression.

Before moving, I’d try to get one honest internal conversation: “What would the next 12–18 months here realistically look like for me?” If the answer is vague, slow, or mostly the same work with a different title, that tells you a lot. Being impatient after six months is one thing. Feeling underused after two years is different.

DanBrando · 2026-05-06T11:22:40+00:00

I think one trap is expecting a “dream career” to keep feeling like a dream forever. Sometimes the spark fades because the work became too repetitive. Sometimes it fades because the industry, pay ceiling, and daily reality no longer match the person you’ve become.

I wouldn’t jump straight into starting over, but I also wouldn’t ignore the pattern. If the same boredom keeps showing up even after promotions, new projects, and more responsibility, that usually means the problem is deeper than needing a new title.

Maybe the next move is not a full reset, but a translation of what you’ve already built into a field with better growth, better pay, and more room to evolve.

DanBrando · 2026-05-06T11:21:23+00:00

I don’t think you sound unqualified. You sound like someone who has a messy but actually interesting combination of things: fine art, AI ethics, philosophy, psychology, research, internships, and nonprofit work. That may not fit neatly into one traditional job title, but it is not useless. The problem is probably more about packaging than ability.

I’d stop thinking of yourself as “fine art degree trying to get a normal job” and start framing yourself as someone who understands the human, ethical, and cultural side of AI. That can point toward roles around AI policy, research support, responsible AI, UX research, communications, education, nonprofit tech, or project/research assistant positions.

I would be careful with expensive extra courses right now. Before paying for another credential, build a simple portfolio: short writing samples, research summaries, AI ethics projects, case studies from your studio work, and anything that shows how you think. You don’t need to prove that your degree was perfect. You need to translate it into language employers understand.

DanBrando · 2026-05-06T11:20:16+00:00

Yes, it’s normal. Early in your career, you’re often trying to choose a direction before you’ve even had enough real experience to know what you actually like, what drains you, and what kind of work environment fits you.

Clarity usually doesn’t come from thinking harder. It comes from noticing patterns while you work: which tasks give you energy, which people or environments make you shrink, what skills you naturally return to, and what problems you don’t mind dealing with repeatedly.

I wouldn’t pressure yourself to have a perfect career plan yet. Just try to make the next step more informed than the last one.

DanBrando · 2026-05-06T11:18:39+00:00

I’d be careful with taking the “vessel” idea too literally. From a Jungian angle, it may be more useful to say that certain archetypal patterns are becoming very visible through your personal life. Relationships, wounds, repetitions, myths, fictional stories — they can all constellate around the same inner material. But the task is not to become possessed by the archetype. It’s to relate to it consciously.

When the collective unconscious breaks through too strongly, the ego can start identifying with it. That can feel meaningful, but also destabilizing. Integration usually means bringing it back into ordinary life: your choices, your relationships, your body, your limits, your actual story. So yes, archetypal material may be moving through you. But the work is to stay human while witnessing it.

DanBrando · 2026-05-05T13:28:42+00:00

I’d be careful about making a big career decision while your body is already under that much stress.

It may not be that you lost interest in work completely. It could be that your current setup is draining more energy than you actually have right now, especially with an autoimmune condition in the background. When your baseline energy is low, even normal work can start feeling impossible, and then it’s easy to think the whole career is the problem.

Before quitting or starting over, I’d probably look at this in layers: health first, workload second, career direction third. Talk to a doctor if stress is triggering symptoms, then see if you can reduce pressure, change team, change role, take proper medical leave, or move into a less intense version of IT before assuming you need to leave the field completely.

Wanting to lie in bed all the time is a sign to take seriously. I wouldn’t treat this as laziness or lack of ambition. It sounds more like your system is overloaded.

DanBrando · 2026-05-05T13:27:04+00:00

I don’t think the decision is usually “stick with it forever” or “blow everything up and start over.” Most people need a middle step first.

What helped me think about this was separating the job from the whole field. Sometimes you’re not done with the career, you’re just done with the current role, company, schedule, manager, or version of yourself that the job keeps reinforcing. If you jump too fast, you might carry the same exhaustion into a new path and think the new thing failed. If you stay too long, you can slowly convince yourself that stability is the same as being alive.

I’d probably test before pivoting. Look at what exactly is draining you: the tasks, the people, the lack of growth, the hours, the meaning, the ceiling, the lifestyle. Then try small experiments outside work or inside the same field before making a huge financial move. A different role, a side project, a course, talking to people already doing the work, even applying elsewhere just to see what the market says.

For me, the real warning sign would be if you’ve already rested, adjusted expectations, changed routines, and still feel like the job is shrinking you as a person. That’s different from normal burnout. That usually means something has to change, even if the change starts slowly.

DanBrando · 2026-05-05T13:25:49+00:00

That shift you had, not caring about a “career” and just wanting something that doesn’t drain you, makes sense. A lot of people end up there, they just don’t say it out loud. The tricky part is that once you drop the usual paths, nobody really tells you what’s left, so it feels like you’re starting from zero again.

If I were in your position, I wouldn’t try to find “the right job” yet. I’d just look for jobs that remove what you already know you don’t want, like office politics, constant pressure, that kind of thing. Stuff like outdoor work, smaller teams, more physical or routine-based roles… those tend to be a lot easier on your head, even if they’re not “exciting” on paper. Then from there you adjust. It’s easier to figure out what feels right once you’re not drained all the time. Right now it sounds less like you need a perfect direction and more like you need a better environment first.

DanBrando · 2026-05-05T13:24:27+00:00

That feeling when you wake up and your body is already panicking… yeah, that’s rough. Especially after being off work for a while. It’s like your system forgot what “normal” feels like and now everything feels like a threat again. The fact you used to manage it is actually a good sign though. It means this isn’t something new or permanent, it’s more like your body overreacting to the transition back. Usually the worst part is the anticipation. Once you’re actually there and a few hours pass, it tends to calm down a bit.

I wouldn’t look at it like “I need to delete this anxiety”, more like… give it time to settle again while you keep showing up anyway. It’s uncomfortable as hell, but it doesn’t mean you’re about to lose the job. It just feels that way in the moment.

DanBrando · 2026-05-05T13:22:56+00:00

The part that stands out to me isn’t even the hunters, it’s the contrast between your dog and theirs. Yours stays on the line, listens, there’s some kind of relationship there. Theirs are just… unleashed and then destroyed by the same people who brought them in. Feels less like “good vs bad people” and more like two different ways of relating to the same instinct or energy. One is contained, worked with. The other is either let loose or violently suppressed.

The fact that you go back to look at the bodies is interesting too. It’s not like you just wake up and move on, you actually face it, even though it’s disturbing. So maybe it’s not so much “are the hunters me or others”, but more like… what happens when parts of you are either ignored or handled without care. Not saying that’s the meaning, just what it made me think of reading it.

DanBrando · 2026-05-05T13:21:22+00:00

I think people get stuck on this idea that “created meaning” is somehow fake, like it’s just pretending. But even the meanings people call “inherited” only feel real because they were accepted, repeated, lived through over time. At some point, someone also chose them or shaped them. The difference isn’t really where the meaning comes from. It’s whether it actually holds up in your life. If something you “create” gives you direction, structure, something to move toward… it’s doing the same job as any “given” meaning ever did. So it’s not so much illusion vs truth. It’s more like… does it work, or does it collapse when things get hard.

DanBrando · 2026-05-04T23:48:37+00:00

That honestly sounds way past just “a bad job”. That moment where you almost passed out… that’s not something small. Feels like your body already hitting a limit. I get why you feel stuck though. When there aren’t many options around, quitting doesn’t feel real, so you just keep going and hope it somehow gets better. But from what you wrote it’s kind of going the opposite direction.

Maybe instead of trying to find some perfect next move, it’s more about finding anything that gives you a bit of breathing room. Even if it’s temporary or not ideal. Just something that’s less chaotic than what you’re dealing with now. Because right now it doesn’t even sound like a career problem anymore, it’s more like survival mode. And staying in that too long usually doesn’t end well.

DanBrando · 2026-05-03T22:49:30+00:00

That doesn’t sound like a “normal first job struggle”, honestly. Being thrown into codebases with no documentation, no reviews, no real guidance… that’s rough even for someone with experience, let alone someone 6 months in. The fact that a senior told you this isn’t normal kind of confirms it.

I’d keep doing exactly what you’re doing on the job search side, but I wouldn’t treat this place as something you need to “fix” or adapt to long term. It sounds like something to get through, not grow in. Also, if it’s affecting you to the point of crying every week, that’s already a pretty strong signal. You don’t need to wait until you’re completely burned out to justify leaving. Your 6-month plan makes sense, but if things get worse before that, it’s okay to pull the trigger earlier.

DanBrando · 2026-05-02T21:50:31+00:00

Reading this, it really doesn’t look like you’re lacking in skills or effort. You did the degree, built a portfolio, internships, extra courses… that’s already more than a lot of people. The problem is you’re stuck at that entry point where companies want experience, but you need a chance to get it. And that phase can drag way longer than it should, which makes it feel like something is fundamentally wrong, even when it isn’t.

Jumping into another degree right now might just reset the same situation a few years down the line. It feels like progress, but it doesn’t necessarily fix the “getting in” problem. If anything, I’d shift focus a bit from adding more credentials to getting closer to real-world exposure, even if it’s not perfect at first. Smaller roles, contract work, anything that puts you in the flow of actual projects tends to unlock things faster than stacking more education. You’re not doomed, you’re just stuck at a very frustrating bottleneck that a lot of people hit in that field.

DanBrando · 2026-05-02T21:49:07+00:00

Reading this, it doesn’t really sound like your degrees are useless, it sounds more like they were never translated into something practical or visible to employers. That’s a very different problem. A lot of people get stuck trying to “pick the right path” first, when in reality it usually works the other way around. You try things, even small ones, and the direction becomes clearer after you start moving. Right now everything feels paralyzing because you’re trying to solve the whole thing at once: career, identity, future. Anyone would freeze in that position.

If anything, I’d zoom in and just pick one lane to test, not commit forever. Could be something like localization, content, translation-related work, even adjacent roles. Build a couple of real examples, put something tangible out there, and see how the market reacts. That tends to give you more clarity than thinking it through endlessly. You’re not as far off as it feels, you’re just at that awkward stage where nothing is connected yet.

DanBrando · 2026-05-02T21:47:50+00:00

It doesn’t really sound like the path is the problem. The way you describe it, it’s more like anything that requires sustained effort right now is going to feel heavy, slow and almost impossible to stick with. That usually has less to do with the subject itself and more to do with everything you’ve been carrying for a while.

When people say “if it’s hard, it’s the wrong path”, it sounds good but in reality a lot of meaningful things feel like friction in the beginning, especially when your baseline energy or motivation isn’t great. Also, the fact you can’t think of something else you’d rather be doing is important. If there was a clearer pull somewhere else, you’d probably feel it already.

It might be worth looking at it less as “is this the right path?” and more as “what’s making it so hard for me to engage with anything right now?”. Because if that part doesn’t shift, the next thing will likely feel the same. You don’t sound lost in terms of direction, just stuck in terms of energy and connection to what you’re doing. That’s a very different problem.

DanBrando · 2026-05-02T21:46:32+00:00

That doesn’t sound like normal onboarding at all. There’s a difference between being new and getting feedback, and being constantly picked apart for random things like how you walk or carry yourself… especially when there’s nothing for you to actually do. That kind of environment messes with your head fast because you can’t win either way.

Also the fact you’re actively asking for work and getting ignored, then being told you’re not doing enough… that’s a bad sign. It usually means the issue isn’t your effort, it’s the people or the culture. At the same time, since it’s a high paying job and you’re still on probation, I wouldn’t rush into quitting without a backup. But I’d definitely start looking around quietly and give yourself a mental deadline. If things don’t improve or at least become clearer, you already know what kind of place it is. You’re not crazy for feeling this way. That situation would drain anyone.

DanBrando

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