How do you quit the perfect job?

In the past 6 years, I've had a key role in the creation of the most beautiful web architecture I've ever worked with.

It's simple, elegant, efficient, and an absolute joy to work on - and, above all, it's successful: turn-around time is fast, features live up to user expectations, defects are extremely rare and often quickly resolved.

I've had the joy of successfully teaching the principles, practices, values, patterns and techniques to a team, guiding them on a daily basis to successful, enjoyable, consistent work - the feedback has been almost exclusively positive, and negative feedback has almost always lead to durable improvements.

It's been deeply rewarding, on both a professional and personal level.

In my 21 years of web development, I've never been more pleased with the work.

But all good things come to an end.

I won't go into the reasons, which are personal - but after struggling with this decision, day and night, for weeks on end, I'm resolved: I have to quit and move on.

My question is, how do you do that?

I've been scouring the job boards, and it just seems like everything is going to suck in comparison: overly complex systems built on bloated frameworks, default architecture, code-generators, object/relational-mappers, tools and practices that generally go against everything I stand for and believe in.

I feel like I've been blessed and cursed all at once. I was lucky enough to arrive at a time when my employer was willing to rebuild from ground up - in my experience, that practically never happens. I don't live in a capital city, so startups are rare - and most startups just want rapid prototypes and quick entry to markets, anyhow.

How do you move on after an experience like this?

If you've been in a similar situation, any experience you can share would be greatly appreciated.

Thank You! ✨