In contrast to the author, I find software development at 50 to be an amazing experience. I am more patient and have the mental flexibility to learn things which were much harder for me 10-20 years ago.

That was about the last time I developed in C++ and I found it excruciating then. Today, I find it exhilarating and intuitive. Also unexpected is I find there is a sense of more immediate gratification. Perhaps it is because I'm not dealing with layers of modern libraries or spending 80% of my time trying to sort through build errors caused by someone updating a dependency I didn't know I had. I can see visible progress every day. It reminds me very much of developing in the 90s and 2000s.

Being financially secure also plays a role. I don't have to work (and in fact, I took much of Covid off), but I do because I enjoy it so much. Consequently, I have zero stress over day-to-day matters. I have found that work, decoupled from finances, can be incredibly rewarding.