Earlier quoted context omitted.
>>I thought by the time you're 54 you could retire. I'm much younger and I could retire in a couple of years. What is your saving rate? That is not going to help him much now. Not everyone has or could have started saving early in life. Some did not due to ignorance, some did not due to life circumstances, some did but other life events could have taken that from them (i.e bad investments, divorce, medical issue, or…
I didn't say he should have retired, it's just my expectation for a software engineer to have the ability to retire by then. It's very likely he could retire but he just didn't realized. Maybe looking into it, it's not a bad idea. I worked on 3 continents, in more than 10 companies. No employer ever told me I'm coming in too late, my lunch time it's too long or I'm leaving too early (6pm).
Underestimate your annual expenses by $10K on a 5% SWR? Ok you need a pot of $200K more. At 3%? $333K more. 2%? $500K.
With interest rates in a 700 year downward trend, and yields dropping across all asset classes, you should NOT assume, as a software engineer, that you will be able to retire in your 50s.
Still, of that's something that appeals, start saving and investing, otherwise the chance is literally 0.