Hi!

I got laid off from my software engineer job and took some time to re-evaluate things. I've been a Software Engineer for the last ~4-5 years, but I'm not sure if I'm cut out for it. I got my start in IT as a network tech and always enjoyed my Cisco networking academy classes which helped me earn an AAS degree about a decade ago. I stayed in IT ops for a while, but ended up going the sysadmin route and eventually wound up going back to school and getting a SWE internship (and worked for Cisco after graduating, funnily enough).

But I'm just kind of burned out on SWE, I think. I don't really enjoy trying to keep up with the combinatorics of front-end/back-end languages, technologies, frameworks, testing libraries, dependencies, etc. I enjoy problem-solving and logic, but I really struggle with the abstract mathematical thinking required for data structures & algorithms, etc. I'm a reasonably talented programmer, but I'm best at scripting for performing/automating concrete tasks rather than designing/implementing new abstract features.

I'm hoping to get some feedback about what my options are. I want to be able to WFH 100% (even post-covid), so I'm thinking something cloud-based is probably going to be best. I had a Network cert that expired years ago, but could probably pass the CCNA after a quick update/refresher.

Cloud Network Engineer? DevOps? What's the reasonable play here?