I've worked at large companies outside FAANG and I saw great deal of senior devs over 30 with extensive domain experience, and they are still coding and mentoring.
They are probably less interested in filling up surveys or showing up at events compared to their younger selves.
While young people have some edge in terms of energy and motivation, senior dev tend to make better overall decisions as their intuition have been sharpened by real life experiences. In order to appreciate the impact of architectural and design decisions, one must live to see the entire lifecycle of multiple products under various environments and also experiment with different tools/languages to tell apart the hype from real progress.
Look at tennis, senior players are able to beat much younger opponents due to skills and ability to read the game better. So as long as their bodies are good enough they are able to win. I'd argue that development is not much different, but one need to keep the mind/motivation high and that is where the challenge is.
Development is not easy, it requires concentration, discipline and constant learning, and many people tend to drop out from the game all together as other part of their lives take over.
At 36 I have much more mental endurance and learning discipline than ten years ago. I can literally do stuff now that I couldn’t then and I think or hope this trajectory continues for decades to come.
> many people tend to drop out from the game all together as other part of their lives take over.
Many people appear to believe that we must work more rather than doing the right work more effectively. That can often appear to not allow for the rest of one's life.
They are probably less interested in filling up surveys or showing up at events compared to their younger selves.
While young people have some edge in terms of energy and motivation, senior dev tend to make better overall decisions as their intuition have been sharpened by real life experiences. In order to appreciate the impact of architectural and design decisions, one must live to see the entire lifecycle of multiple products under various environments and also experiment with different tools/languages to tell apart the hype from real progress.
Look at tennis, senior players are able to beat much younger opponents due to skills and ability to read the game better. So as long as their bodies are good enough they are able to win. I'd argue that development is not much different, but one need to keep the mind/motivation high and that is where the challenge is.
Development is not easy, it requires concentration, discipline and constant learning, and many people tend to drop out from the game all together as other part of their lives take over.