I finally reached that point in life where a job doesn't cut it, even it it feels like it pays well. I'm starting to think about the future and how can i increase the value of my services.

Coming from a theoretical schooling system based on informatics, programming came quite easily to me as well as maths. Attended a university, but i didn't finish it, i just went on to get a job with the bare minimum. In hindsight i don't regret it at all, it would have been a time waster and an useless brain fryer, not to mention the ropes of the educational would have led me into a mold, and i higly value independence.

I worked for about 3 years at a stratup with shit pay, but i was such a chump it didn't really occur to me to just go look for something else, i'd just do the bare minimum to get by, until eventually i got fed up with the rat life, stepped my game up hoping that would get me somewhere with that company. LOL

Shortly after getting perspective about that i went on to finally become a remote developer for 17 euros/hour. That was about x4 times the money i was making before so i felt a proper 6 month celebration was in order. It didn't take long to realize that project was basically way worse than my first job in terms of experience (i was a human CMS for simple marketing campaings for television and internet), which made my regard towards my job to plummet. Also made the big mistake of trying to be the fun guy, since i was riding that newfound fortune wave. Never again. I eventually got laid off, but it seems i was also likable enough and not a complete fail, so the contractors said they wanted to keep me but i was only down for that sweet remote life. Haven't heard from them with such offers so i started looking.

As i started looking i was thinking to myself that i don't want an brainless easy job again even if it pays well, and the ideal scenario is a job that makes use of my full skillset. Namely, my plan is to become a designer, and be done with coding in the future.

I read through what i could get my hands on around here about finance and given my situation i'd say i have about 10, maybe 15 more years at best in the field (nobody wants old people especially in tech, i wouldn't want to keep being in tech either, if possible).

I currently live in Romania, Cluj. I'm also the artsy pantsy kind of fellow, so my knowledge of the material might have huge holes in it so please bear with me.

That being said, i hope i haven't rambled too much. I'll update the post with any missing info along the way as i receive feedback, cheers!

TLDR: 27 yo Front-End developer in Romania looking to maximize my earnings. Current plan is to get into React, then Probably full stack. But i'd rather go the design way if that's an option.