There are three popular paths you can take as you get older: You can become obsolete and eventually find yourself laid off and unemployable. Or you can move into management. Or you can keep learning new technology, becoming better, more employable, and able to demand higher bill rates year after year.
To a large extent, you get to choose which of these paths you prefer to go down.
I seem to have personally gone down path four: Start your own business. Consulting, unlike employeeing, tends to map bill rate exponentially to experience. And selling software products... well, when was the last time you decided not to buy a SaaS product because the company's founder seemed too old? That's what I thought.
It is interesting that some parts of CS have more opportunities for consulting than others. Has anyone else experienced this in their chosen specialization?
To a large extent, you get to choose which of these paths you prefer to go down.
I seem to have personally gone down path four: Start your own business. Consulting, unlike employeeing, tends to map bill rate exponentially to experience. And selling software products... well, when was the last time you decided not to buy a SaaS product because the company's founder seemed too old? That's what I thought.