I’m 45. I didn’t start aggressively job hopping until I was 35, before then I stayed at one job for almost 10 years. I haven’t once had a problem finding a job quickly. I was a generalist when I was 35 and started down the road of specializing in the Microsoft stack in 2008. I start pivoting in 2016 to more architect level roles but still staying hands on but with more cross platform languages (.Net Core, Node, Python), I also spent the last two years getting a lot of experience with AWS from a development/Devops/netops standpoint.

I’m slowly getting more into the front end $cool_kids stack with React, etc.

But, I don’t do the blind resume submittals to job boards and applicant tracking systems. I keep a very strong network of external recruiters, former managers, and former coworkers.

I have never studied leetCode, and won’t go near a job that’s more concerned with how well I’ve read over “Cracking the Code” instead of how well I can architect a system.