Am I permanently kissing my SWE career trajectory career goodbye by downshifting from a F500 tech job to a local community college?

I work in a F500 tech company with 175k+ TC.

36 years old now with about 10+ YOE of SWE experience.

Have about $750,000 in savings and a paid off house worth $500,000. Currently renting two of my other rooms in my house out for $1,000 each per month. I'm getting 18,000 after tax rental income from these two rooms.

A local community college wants me for their software development position. It's 5 minutes walking distance from my house. It's incredibly easy job duties. They use .NET C# for their enterprise tool. Salary is $80,000. Benefits are pretty good (18% match, great healthcare). Job security is pretty much guaranteed for rest of my life.

I could probably get a tech lead position at my current company or at another similar tier company but I'm sort losing motivation for ladder climbing.

Would working at this local community college for like 2 years screw up my career trajectory for SWE if I ever decided to want to come back?

Posted Mar 5, 2026, 8:01 PM UTC

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