I thought I would have accomplished a lot more today and also before I was 35

That seems to be the logical conclusion. The current system is artificial, every piece is carefully stacked like a house of cards; this makes it very brittle. We're in an Orwellian nightmare. By now, if the system collapses, it could be the most devastating crash in human history. On the other hand, if things keep going in the same direction, we will end up in a horrible dystopia where life will only be worth living for the rich; everyone else will be slaves.

Also, I think I've figured out what the "defund the police" movement is really about; it's to allow Corporations to later step in and privatize the police force. Then they can claim the credit for restoring law and order and further gain people's trust whilst gaining more control over them. Seems kind of far fetched still, but few things would surprise me these days.

Chis, If somebody hires you based on this thread let us (or me) know who the employer is.

Like 'headmelted' pointed out, part of 'agiesm' is that it’s just that you’ll be impossible to abuse relative to someone who they know needs the money.

Programmers, especially the young are insecure douche bags, and I suspect that their insecurity leads to hiring docile individuals who can be coerced.

> As much as they possibly can.

We can flesh this out, too.

I would add: "As much as they possibly can in tax-advantaged accounts, and then more!" And it turns out, you can save a shit ton in a tax advantaged way.

Let's look at 2020 limits, and assume a married couple, under 50, with one person earning as a software engineer:

$19,500 max contribution to a pre-tax 401(k). Many companies match. You should contribute all $19.5k, not just what you can to get the full match. If you're over 50, do the $6,500 catch-up.

But that's not all. The IRS limit on combined employer/employee contributions is $57,000. So if your employer allows it, contribute the remaining $37,500 post-tax and then convert it to a Roth IRA to at least get the earnings and withdrawal tax advantage (commonly known as the "mega-backdoor Roth").

$12,000 to an IRA (or Roth), $6,000 from both you and your spouse. If you like Roth but are beyond the income limits for the Roth, do the "regular backdoor Roth".

$7,100 to a family HSA. If your company offers it, do it. It's triple tax advantaged when used for health expenses.

Although they are old-school and don't yield much, US savings bonds can be a decent way to fill up an emergency fund. They are exempt from state taxes, and interest may be excluded from Federal income tax when used to finance education. There are a few to choose from, I particularly like the Series-I bonds. The government limits individuals to $10,000 per year for a total of $20,000 for a married couple.

So, if you are a very high earner, and are fortunate enough you can max all of these, you can save $96,100 per year, with some kind of tax advantage. There is probably more that I'm not thinking of. You should probably do all of these before you even think about looking at fully-taxed investments like your retail stock broker.

Not sure if this will help, but I'll share my very recent story of how ageism looks from the other (youngish people) side, which contains some pitfalls to avoid.

I'm 32, and the technical lead of a mid-sized research computing / ML team in quasi-academia. I'm the one who tells the boss whether a hire is technically competent, performing up to standard, is meshing well with the team, etc. So I don't make hire/fire decisions myself but have substantial influence on them.

Usually, when we hire people > 30, they are PhDs with a specific specialty, like statistics. But recently we hired a guy from industry in his early 50s to do some programming, web dev, and light ML. He had, obviously a long CV with programming and some practice with ML/statistics, although nothing related to our field. Here are some of the things this guy has done in the ~1 months before and since his hiring:

1. He frequently bullshits in presentations and meetings, pretending to know things he doesn't know.

2. Very shortly after joining, he has recommended we radically rebuild several of our systems in different, "better" ways -- ways which he's familiar with. For example, we have a web app on AWS Ubuntu, and he has repeatedly asked why we can't just run a Windows server.

3. If he doesn't know something, he insists on getting step-by-step tutorials from technical people in the lab, but tutorials in how to do things HIS way. For example, we all use Linux and an SSH client, but he wasted 2 hours of my time asking how to SSH into AWS using PuTTY on Windows, how to copy files using WinSCP, etc, since of course he only uses Windows. He claims he'll learn Linux eventually, but wants to use what he knows "for now", "so that he can more rapidly produce results".

4. The first time I met the guy in person (not immediately due to COVID), he had plopped himself and his laptop down in my desk, without asking, and even readjusted my chair settings, and complained about my office being messy. I'm #2 in seniority...

Any one of these alone would be...annoying, but all together he is almost a caricature of every ageist stereotype in tech. He expects a level of respect he feels is due his experience level, while simultaneously he resists learning anything about the way his new organization does things...presumably because he knows better?

It puts me in an awkward situation because I'm kind of his technical supervisor. If he were a new graduate student, I would tell him to cut out the bullshit, figure things out, and quit wasting my time (and commandeering my desk). Since he is almost twice my age it is too awkward to read him the riot act, though, and I don't really know how to deal with this.

My takeaway is that an older person in a new tech job should really, really avoid displaying arrogance and entitlement. Respect is earned, not given; even if you've spent 30+ years in the field, we whippersnappers don't know how competent you are (or not), until it's demonstrated. I'm not saying you made any of these mistakes, but sometimes it is easy to do some of these things unconsciously. Probably you are perfectly competent, but people like this guy are working against you.

If you haven't seen it, there's a great community[1] geared toward documentation. Their guide[2] is an excellent starting point on documentation.

1. https://www.writethedocs.org/ 2. https://www.writethedocs.org/guide/