Tech Career Longevity

I am 40 this year and next year will be 20 since my first paid job. I am more than confident that I'll be all right in 10 years time. I did desktop apps with Delphi, all kinds of websites with php/mysql/jquery, worked on a media streaming system for video calls, developed ci pipelines, tools to compile code on a server and run it on thin clients, recently reactjs apps, django backend, code generators, you name it. It's al the same blipping thing. It's just code that gets

To expand, the software industry moves fast, and you have to keep learning to stay afloat, or risk stagnating and ending your career early. look at where software was at 5 or 10 or even 20 years ago. There was no react and no rust 20 years ago, nor was there even git! Whatever you know now is going to be out of date in a matter of years. good luck getting a job if that's all you ever want to learn.

I'm still going, but the biggest issue I'm finding is that knowledge keeps turning over. I have made big efforts in the past to learn technologies, languages and libraries that became obsolete then starting all over again. Software Engineering now is completely different to what I started with.I have more Project experience but technically I dont know much more about Cloud, JS frameworks, modern DBs etc than someone 30 years old. Ironically my main advantage seems to be I can focus

Don't choose hamster-wheel career tracks in the first place. Try to find Lindy paths [1], [2]. For example, SQL experts and DBAs. The rise and (mostly) demise of NoSQL actually cemented SQL's reputation as an irreplaceable technology. The latest Web framework is by definition non-Lindy: it's the new kid in town who think they know it all. grep is lindy, Unix is lindy, the qwerty keyboard is lindy, C++ is lindy, Computer Science is lindy, algorithms and data structures are lindy. K

So many things, but one that stands out is realizing the nature of the career field. It's a constantly changing field with new things invented all the time. Think of it as a moving train that never stops. This is what is exciting about software because there's always something new to learn. Some folks don't like this aspect because they would rather learn one thing and use that for a long time. These are also people who have problems and wonder why they get laid off from their job

True, to be relevant you need to stay up to date.One of the pains in staying up to date in tech is that learning Perl then java then javascript then python and whatever comes next and the corresponding frameworks seems like a big hamster wheel. You pretty much are doing the same thing you're just learning new ways to do it -not necessarily better.It seems like you're writing the same term paper over and over again. After a while, it loses its luster.If I could do it again I wo

You are not starting over every 2-4 years. A lot of what you learned is reusable, those frameworks resemble each other great deal. Even with changing languages, it is hard only when you are changing paradigm (procedural to object to functional). Things like syntax take less effort to pick up and re-learn. Algorithms, debugging and structuring of code and similar meta skills remain. Moreover, you dont have to chase every fad. They come and go and it is perfectly ok to skip some of them. Focus on

Re: The over 40s I know are also able to produce working [prototypes] faster...Not necessarily if it has to be built in some stack or language flavor of the month (and VC's check). If you change entire tool-sets every 18 months, I bet the younger folks will be able to re-learn faster. I'm 40+ myself, and am saying this from experience. It's unfortunate our industry is so fad-driven, but I didn't create humans, I just work among them.I recommend one focus on a do

In most other professions from doctors to electricians, years of experience equates to years of expertise. In software development, the technologies change so rapidly that a large amount of time is spent learning the technologies and tools. You may be a veteran Java or C++ developer with intricate knowledge of the underlying frameworks and implementations. At some point those technologies are replaced and that knowledge is worthless. All those years of experience are gone. Sure some general expe

>A 50 year old who spent the last 20 years working for the same company using old tech may struggle, and by the time you realize you need to retool it can be too late.Basically, stay up-to-speed with Javascript if you do web development. It's the only landscape that changes significantly enough to warrant the effort, mainly because it's a huge melting pot of coding styles and frameworks and managers of these projects seem to have less commitment to their technical decisions long-