Illcar,

I am 42. Stayed technical, became a consultant 10 years ago. Over the last 20 years since I graduated from university, I have been a developer, architect, technical team lead, project manager and director. I came back to coding, because that's what I enjoy best, and because in I.T. Projects, there are always far more openings for developers than for architects or managers.

I do not worry that I will get kicked out of the profession for being too old when I reach 50. First of all, there are not enough younger programmers coming out of universities to replace us, and also the profession has been steadily growing older over the last decade. Yes, I lost a few contracts to development teams in India, but not all projects can be sent off shore.

Yes, as a consultant, there is always the possibility that I lose my contract and that I have to find another one. But as a consultant I make far more money than a full-time employee, so even if I don't work three or four months per year (never happened) I would still come out better than with a salary.

  Also, let's say I am three months without a job before I find another contract, well I don't really lose 3 months salary. I would have lost 50% of it to income tax, plus work related expenses such as commuting. SO three months off is more like one and a half month pay loss.

As for office politics, I learned to not let it affect me. My responsibility as a consultant is to provide advice to my client, and then I keep a copy of the email. Sometimes a manager or architect will never believe their solution sucks until the team has spent six months on it and it crashes and burns in front of their eyes. As for myself, I will have spent six months working on a soon to be dead solution, but the only way for me to keep my sanity is to remind myself that I am paid by the hour, so like sex, the longer the better.

As for not having a house right now, this might just be a blessing for you. It means you are not shackled to high mortgage payments. It probably means that you could more easily move to another part of the country to get a job if you ever need to.

Being strategic about your next career move is wise. Worrying about all the bad things that may happen in the future is not going to help you, so you might just as well stop worrying and enjoy life.

Sincerely,

Pascal