Ask HN: Any advice for leaving my UI/UX dev career, possibly to Sales / AE?

Hi, thanks for reading. I'm looking for perspective and advice because I'm looking to possibly make a career change. I'm struggling to find new work during this pandemic (my background is UI/UX development as a senior dev), and to be honest, I'm just not having the fun with it as I used to while I was coming up and everything was challenging and new.

For a little context, I have a solid UI/UX developer resume, having worked with some big companies in my area. This came after I dropped out of school to chase a couple of startup ideas, so unfortunately I don't have a relevant (or any) degree to make my transition options more obvious.

I'm lucky to be able to bill my clients a pretty decent rate for my area (80-90hr), which typically is about 9 months out of the year with a little time between contracts. While the rate is a little hard to walk away from, honestly, I'd do it happily if I could find a career that could be more stable, eventually, compete with that income, and most importantly be a role I can sink my teeth into, and be engaged in day-to-day. Maybe a product for developers/companies who I can offer more support to coming from my UI background?

As a developer, I don't really feel like I have that much impact on the quality of the products I build UI for, so I've thought about moving more into design roles, which I've done some of and enjoy. But, the reason I'm considering sales is that I feel I could work happily in sales if I believe in the product, and I feel that I could become much more invested in my work in a sales role, as opposed to the day-to-day role of a senior UI dev, which has gotten fairly dry. Honestly I'd rather teach at this point, which I suppose is an option as well.

Any advice would be appreciated on how I might make this transition, or anything that jumps out at you from reading this. Thank you!

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