I am unsatisfied and would like to make a change.
I work in an odd environment. It is an academic/research institution, but my role is a standard IT position. I am primarily expected to do system administration tasks and small data management assignments. In general, development is frowned upon. There seems to be a ceiling in opportunity here due to both my "lower" credential (MS rather than PhD) and perception of what my role is by outsiders.
From a more general perspective, I made a critical error when entering the job market at the end of the first Internet boom (early 2000s). I did not take a development job, but rather a test role at a large IT company. It took me several years at that big IT company to realize that this colored perception of my skills and limited internal opportunities despite a MS in CS and significant programming work on the side.
I left for another company where my job role was related to db skills I had picked up but was a greenfield project. That was enjoyable and a learning experience, but the project was cancelled and the entire team laid off in the early days of the financial crisis.
I landed on my feet in my current role. The role has turned out to be quite different that originally pitched to me, but I have a senior title and pay level. The job just doesn't provide much in the way of personal growth.
For family and lifestyle reasons, I will not leave for at least a year. I have been developing some interest in statistics, modeling, and machine learning. While I would prefer not to simply seek another credential, my employer would probably allow me to obtain a MS in statistics at their expense. Perhaps this would lead to more interesting and challenging work, but to be completely honest with myself, my current role is where many people with that background windup anyway.
To somewhat worsen matters, I am often much more attracted to niche technologies (APL,KDB+,J,Common Lisp, Clojure, Ruby) than the market in my area seems to offer employment opportunties for. I probably need to consider re-entering the Java enterprise programming world and not be a prima-donna about programming language.