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Comment by yasp | Hacker News Reader

What are some common Plan Bs?

Farming ;)

Joke aside, I don't know how much of this problem is more related to older devs insisting to have the same dev employment they always had than acutally being old.

Go into management.

Become self-employed.

Start your own shop, service or product based.

Teach younger people what you know for money.

There are many jobs besides just being a "senior developer".

I've also seen many non-tech occupations becoming more technical.

Learn something unrelated on the side and try to apply your dev skills to it.

Being a dev is cool, but being a dev-lawyer, dev-md, dev-techer etc. Is probably gonna let you have a good job later.

You joke but you would be surprise that there are some developers that once burn out, become Luddites. I know a few, one literally bought a worm farm, one bought farm land and started farming lavender, and the other bought a tackle-shop / dive bar down in the Caribbean.

Save and invest 40% of your income. After 15 to 20 years you should be able to declare financial independence, if you want to...

That only works if you start at 25 when you graduate. Not a viable plan for someone approaching 40 who wants to make sure they can continue to support themselves into their 60's and beyond.

A solid Plan-B is to learn an older tech where people are already retiring out of. Examples would be anything IBM used in the 80's early 90's. C/C++, COBOL, JCL, UNIVERSE, VB6, etc. etc. Young people are not competing for this work and you would be surprised at how much it can float you thru lean times if you need to lean on it.

Obviously you need to plan ahead, perhaps read some personal finance books now and then. "The Millionaire Next Door" is still relevant. I read it when I was 22, followed most of it...

Why? Someone who starts at 40 is probably earning more than someone at 25. And someone at 40 has fewer years left to support themselves after their 15-20 years of saving are up.

Because 15 years of compound interest in the stock market more than covers the difference in income between a 25 year old and a 40 year old. The 25 year old has enough time to take risks with money, while the 40 year old needs to be thinking more about preservation of capital.

I don't think so. The 25-year-old needs the money starting in 20 years; so does the 40-year-old. The 25-year-old needs the money to last 45 years after retirement; the 40-year-old needs it to last 30 years. Those aren't significantly different time horizons. The 40-year-old can therefore invest with a very similar risk profile, and get very similar returns.

Which is true, assuming the 40 year old is still employable.

The difference is the 40 year may not want to work for 15+ years to build up his nest egg. The guy who started in his 20's can basically coast...

The idea is that by 40, you have accumulated enough to exit the software field.

Try like hell to save your 1.5 - 3 million and strangle your living expenses down to the bone. Then after your "retirement date" which is code for "slowly drain my principle and hope I don't live past age 80" hope to continue to land contracts on the side for clients that are smart enough to hire you.

Shouldn't that be "Plans B"?

I believe "plan b" is a head first compound noun, and should pluralize like "hangers on", "mothers in law", or "attorneys general".

But I could be wrong. The plural form doesn't get much usage.

Starting law school next week!

Talk about out of the frying pan and into the fire! Unless you have a guaranteed biglaw job lined up, and you enjoy 80 hours weeks necessary to survive as an associate in biglaw, becoming an attorney has far worse income and prospects than being a developer.

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