Honest opinion on career path

Hi everyone!

I'm 2 years out of college and would appreciate your thoughts on my career path thus far, no matter what they are.

I have an undergrad in finance. I also started an ecommerce business that has grossed close to $2MM per year, and have cashed out partially to focus on making it on Wall St.

Directly out of college, I was hired for a prop trading desk (firm capital only) position. It was great fun, and I was the top of the new hires. However, 1.5 years in, I chose to leave due to the skepticism of the long-term employees about the future of manual prop trading. The firm itself is doing great, but the prop trading fund is a skeleton of it's former self. That being said, there were a few guys there with great work-life balance and excellent profits.

I have always been a good programmer, and landed a job as an automation developer at one of the major exchanges. The job is basically "automate all of the stuff we do in excel every day". It's good experience, but "far from the money" and is not a place I can imagine a talented person making a "Wall St. Income".

I'm 6 months in, looking to stay for 1 year total, and look for a quant developer role at a hedge fund.

My goal is to have enough capital to live a middle class life off of dividends; no need for fancy things. I'd rather have time. I think that with the demand for programmers and their pay, that can be achieved.

What are your thoughts? Is this realistic? Completely off? Thanks a lot!