Its not an IT business so naturally the focus isn't on how IT does their job the attention is on how quick can we get it done. Unfortunately that leads to a lot of half baked solutions being put out knowing full well that this is a time bomb and it will blow up at some point. I usually wake up with this immense feeling of dread before turning over to my phone to see what has broken over night and to gauge what my day is going to be like.
The worst thing is, everyone in IT are aware of these issues and bring them up constantly but there is no desire to improve things higher up in the company so it'll continue on as it is because it works well enough.
The IT exodus isn't for fear of AI or anything of the sorts, its never something I've been interested. I got my start as a teenager programming mods for Minecraft and making games on Roblox. I enjoy some of what I do at work but when your spending more time politicking then actually developing software it begins to bore you
As for the new non-IT job, my formal education is in Technical Theatre and Live Entertainment, its something I have been doing for about as long as I have been programming. I was at PLASA (Big events industry tech conference) in London last year and seen a cruise line hiring technicians which put the thought into my head. It was a few months before I actually applied but I got it and managed to get all my Visas and my ENG1 cert. Its a bit of a pay bump, but ultimately I am starting from square 1 so I dont mind it all that much.
Theres probably enough in this for one of my colleagues to put 2 and 2 together to figure out who I am, but nothing I've said here is something I've not said aloud and been quite vocal about