Come on. We are so lucky we did choose technology as a way of living. Sorry but stop complaining and start learning back new stuff. Can't believe what someone has to read.
-- A developer in his forties.
There's an even bigger push for this now. It seems like everywhere I turn someone is learning to "develop". Sad to say, most of these people only know how to pump out good SASS or HTML or know how to throw a bunch of APIs together.
This of course is a skill of its own, and clearly one that pays bills, but the market will become saturated and the bubble will burst again.
Of course there is demand for cheap workforce, and of course there is more demand than ever for skilled workforce. And salaries are going both ways, down and up. Certainly there is people demanding very cheap software engineers and so certainly never has been better paying software jobs.
So it's a matter of skilling oneself up, specialising or searching carefully. But I 100% believe there is no better industry to be job searching on our 40s.
I do agree with both of these statements which is why I try to level up on a constant basis.
You are correct, apps and closed appliances are definitely the wave of the now, possibly continuing into the future. VR is about to hit the market, video games are going strong, people still think they need phones, and websites are still going strong. So yes tech is a great industry to be in, and what else are you going to do? Swing a hammer?
But the more saturated the market gets with developers (and they don't have to be good as long as they're cheap and get the job done fast... something that is harder to do as you get older) the less value guys like myself or you will serve.
Sticking with a company and one technology is of course a slow form of career death, but getting strangled out by all the new growth and an abandonment of the old (be that human or technology) is also a very real problem that isn't just going to vanish by cramming knowledge into your brain.
I do, but I think it was misapplied. My step-grandmother is a business lawyer who has passed the bar in multiple states including Florida. She is extremely intelligent, reads faster than anyone I've encountered and is very current with the times. She is also 60 and hasn't been able to get a job in years due to her age... so she has to contract.
Damn it. Today, one, if willing, can just learn the latest new technology and not only become 1000% employable but also relevant. Can't think of any other sector like this. We're so lucky.