[goatking]

I'm in similar shoes as OP, want to do something else. I think I'm burned out, and don't have the way to fix it (e.g. taking a year long sabbatical)

I was looking into a lot of these things you mention here, problem is the "golden handcuff" from software engineering. I could only start doing anything new by taking a HUGE pay cut for many years, and I simply can't do that in my current life situation.

Let me know if you have a solution to that :D