How do you see our profession evolving until and past your retirement age? Are you not worried that, besides the LLM revolution (and whatever comes next), ageism will cause you to be out of a job at say 60 at the latest?
I'm worried that not only ageism but also a sudden accident or any other sickness can put me out of a job. That's exactly what I meant by "have enough savings to cover detours during the journey." That's why I used to "only" word in, "Instead of relying only on forty years of commitment to retirement schemes, ..." I still have retirement and government support to cover my problems up to a certain point. However, it's up to me to make the journey safer by investing according to my goal.
I am well past 60. For the first 30 odd years I was an individual contributor in both programming and system administration and manager of the same.
When one of the financial crises and ageism ended my management career, I went back to school and switched fields. After a few years I got the chance to teach new computer support professionals in vocational program. I have been doing that for 15 years.
As a side note for ageism "victims" our school is growing and is struggling to find enough competent teachers (Window/Linux Admin, Database, Scripting, Networking, VMs, Cloud, Mobile devices...).
Check out your local vocational programs. You can find permanent or bridge work teaching at this level. Usually industry experience is more important for these jobs than a teaching degree.
Do you feel like you'll be much less productive at 60? Why would you work for a company that thinks that way? Can you no longer solve business problems by that age? We have 80 year old politicians, so I'd hope not.
Unless you are super lucky to have own company and own product(s).
Managers hate mature people because they are a lot harder to command. You also run into the problem of someone being more qualified than their superior. I work in healthcare and seeing a child manager clash with a 60 year old nurse never stops being hilarious.
are they any good? or do we pray for their passing so that more progressive policies can be considered?
The one think I do feel strongly is that my current FTE job is my last one. Ageism is a real issue, when it comes to finding a job in tech when you're in your 50s; running the recruitment race in my 60s is not something I want to face. Which means I feel like I've lost the chance to walk away from my current job if anything goes wrong.
I get my pension in 7 years time: I'm looking forward to it already!
So my answer was luckily i retired. The interesting thing is after being in tech for 35-40 years i have no interest in any of it now. Hell after 3 weeks of retirement i didnt. I have a small farm now and play with tractors and such all day.