Comment by Oras
From someone who’ve been 23 years in the industry, go out, have fun, and build a network.
Your skills will not take you further, your network will.
From someone who’ve been 23 years in the industry, go out, have fun, and build a network.
Your skills will not take you further, your network will.
I'm inclined to agree with you however I know a few C++ developers, DBAs etc approaching their 60s who don't have any inclination to do anything non technical. I myself have moved from development to solution architecture. I'm quite surprised how non-technical it is most of the time, although it does require a lot of understanding of concepts which most managers seem to struggle with.
I'm not sure I'm in full agreement with this. Yes your network has a big impact on your success, but your network is going to be a lot more helpful if you're a skilled developer who delivers.
Put another way, if you put in the effort to become a consistently excellent developer, that's most definitely not going to hurt your career prospects. If you're mediocre and cause problems people will be less likely to refer you.
However failure to update your skills will eventually catch up with you if you are in a technical role.
You don't want to be 40 and an expert in some legacy technology that even the trailing edge companies are phasing out.