I regret becoming a software developer. It was a dumb financial decision in the country I live in.
Also, systems knowledge and critical thinking skills have brought me anguish and made me cynical. I see problems and logical contradictions everywhere and it makes everything and everyone unbearably frustrating.
I should have been a lawyer and done software as a hobby. I don't think law rewires your brain like decades of coding does... You're still human. There's something about being constantly corrected by a compiler for over a decade which changes the way your mind works in a fundamental way.
I feel like you're being a little myopic if you feel that all of programming is logical. Look into the probability stuff like machine learning. Read books from Nassim Taleb like Antifragile to understand that it's very easy for us to convince ourselves that logic and increasingly complex models solve everything. In reality there are many meta-strategies you can use like "via negativa" to still be rational, but make the world appear less crazy, and make the crazy in the world look more obvious, and avoidable.
At least I would probably have made a ton of money and would be made to feel important.
Every minute of software development makes you feel like you're never good enough (the compiler keeps reminding you). Also, on the company side, you're always made to feel like a replaceable cog in a big machine, not to mention that salaries are generally limited and under constant threat of outsourcing... To rub salt into the wound, most companies don't even care about code quality; they will happily pay 10 mediocre engineers to do the job of 1 good engineer (for 10x the total price) and end up with worse results. Hiring has been broken for decades. They don't care about coding efficiency or maintainability when they have a monopoly... Engineer salaries are often peanuts relative to their significant revenues... They could hire 10 times more devs for the same work and it would make little difference for them... Yet they will not pay high salaries to engineers based on talent; it's all about internal politics.
Australia. As a senior software developer, it's possible to earn a salary of up to $110K USD. That may sound OK until you consider that in Australia, an experienced coal miner earns $130K USD (7 days on, 7 days off lifestyle) and a garbage man earns $80K USD...
Also, many builders, plumbers and other tradesmen run their own businesses and are earning much more than average.
Because everyone else has high salaries, it drives house prices and living costs to insane levels.
It's a similar situation in most non-US countries through. It's even worse in Europe where software developers have to compete with people from developing countries (that was true even before the mass influx caused by Ukraine war) - They have it better because they can arbitrage the international cost of living differences to buy up cheap real estate in their home countries (which, as a non-citizen, I cannot do due to regulations).
I had actually relocated to EU (Germany) to try to improve my situation but was shocked to find out that things were even worse than in Australia due to higher immigration (more competition from countries with lower cost of living = lower salaries). It was so bad, I had to move back to Australia.
At least in Australia the class differences aren't so significant; being at the bottom of society doesn't feel as bad.
Also, systems knowledge and critical thinking skills have brought me anguish and made me cynical. I see problems and logical contradictions everywhere and it makes everything and everyone unbearably frustrating.
I should have been a lawyer and done software as a hobby. I don't think law rewires your brain like decades of coding does... You're still human. There's something about being constantly corrected by a compiler for over a decade which changes the way your mind works in a fundamental way.