Ask HN: Is working as a developer on technical route until retirement feasible?

I'm 34, mostly worked in R&D and startups, 10+ years as software dev. Last company was founding CTO, and was grateful to tap a 57 year old former coworker as first dev hire. He's still super sharp and has stayed up to date with his skills. He wasn't always the fastest. But he made so many fewer bugs and architecture mistakes that it didn't matter.

Here's an existence proof for you: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23366546

Several actually, since there are others in the commments.

First, note you're likely to get some survivorship bias in these responses - older people who left the industry are less likely to comment on HN.

That said, as a developer in their mid-40s, here's my take:

1. In general, mid-level engineering management jobs (which I consider Manager to Senior Director level) pay significantly more because they are shittier jobs. Sure, there is the rare soul that loves these kind of jobs, but I think most Directors would freely admit they liked their day-to-day a lot more when they were coding. I find that the type of folks who succeed in these roles have basically stopped caring about work so much and are much more invested in their family life. I.e. they don't "love" their job, but they do well at it because they want to make a nice living for their family.

2. I went the senior engineer -> architect -> director -> senior director route, and honestly I hated being a director/senior director. I don't mind so much managing people, and I really enjoy mentoring, but at the director/senior director level you're doing a ton of managing up, which I hate, and there are a ton of logistical responsibilities at this level that I find mind-numbingly boring.

3. So I switched companies and am now a "principal engineer", which I love and I think is my sweet spot. I don't have any official direct reports, but I do a lot of mentoring and general "team management". Given my history, the senior execs at my company appreciate some of my "management-level input", but they know I'm most effective if I'm not involved in tweaking job-level band discussions. To echo another commenter, I do just enough management-level stuff to keep me involved at a high level, but I spend the majority of my time writing code, doing code reviews, and working closely with product management to give engineering input re: new features.

In brief: there’s a good chance that age and experience will change you into wanting a leadership role. Start laying the groundwork for that now, even if you don’t think The Change will ever come.

As much as I wanted it to last forever, I eventually lost interest in being an individual contributor in favor of guiding others. My contribution was assessed not just on my own output but also on the output of those to whom I gave guidance.

Then I ditched tech completely and split my time between baking baguettes in the country and working as CS teacher.

Life and priorities change. Some fit naturally into a well trodden career path — such as going from an individual contributor to a manager. Some life and mindset changes will require you to find fulfillment elsewhere though. Techie to techie manager might not be enough change to sate you.

The most common pattern though, in my experience, is to switch to management because you want to. To that extent, assume this might happen to you too, and lay some foundations now just in case.

I don’t know, I just cannot see myself not being rewarded with any kind of raise for the next 30 years as a good thing.