You're situation is almost exactly like mine. Same age, same recent job change etc. While reading your question, I really questioned whether I had wrote it myself 3 or 4 times. The one exception being that I'm starting to get my personal work done, slowly but surely.
My biggest issue was a dead-end job, now that I've got a much more fulfilling job, things have improved drastically. Currently, the hardest part for me is balancing personal time (time with wife and dog) and professional development time (anything with computers, coding, reading development books etc). What has been working well is just to set aside time. To make that extra time that seems to never come after work, I wake up early and read/program.
This niche of just-out-of-school/barely-in-the-workforce programmers could use some kind of online social group.
Does anyone know of an existing site or group that is fills this void?
No, but I second this feeling. A year ago I was hacking away, loving every minute of it. Now I'm in a managerial position at a non-technical company so that I can pay the bills and wow, does it sting.
My biggest issue was a dead-end job, now that I've got a much more fulfilling job, things have improved drastically. Currently, the hardest part for me is balancing personal time (time with wife and dog) and professional development time (anything with computers, coding, reading development books etc). What has been working well is just to set aside time. To make that extra time that seems to never come after work, I wake up early and read/program.
This niche of just-out-of-school/barely-in-the-workforce programmers could use some kind of online social group.
Does anyone know of an existing site or group that is fills this void?