Late stage career for a remote worker?

Question

As another year winds to a close, I realise I am getting older. The 'typical' (not always, of course) career path for a programmer as they get older is to go into management or have some sort of 'lead' or supervisory role. As I chose to live remotely, few of these options are available to me - basically only if there's also a remote team, who wants remote managerial role. What do people here recommend as the 'late stage' career move to stay in tech? Or is it better to diversify away from from pure 'tech'?

playing_colours · Accepted Answer

Maybe in 2019, it is still hardly possible to find remote “manager of managers” roles, but there are remote “manager of engineers” roles - I am in interviews for such positions now.
On the other hand, in 5+ years the number of remote jobs will increase, and there may be more growth for a remote manager.
There are also other ways of growth:
- IC leadership as an architect, responsible for large areas, important technical decisions. Your expertise, communication skills, reliability, cool pragmatic head can be a great benefit there.
- an expert in a particular business or technical domain.There are a lot of options, but I see that it is important to make a right choice, a good bet, so that your expertise will be in demand, well paid, not easy to enter and master, and flexible in our quickly changing field.
For architect and expert roles you can go into contracting and freelancing, although it requires more efforts to build network and recognition initially.
I do not know personally how viable they are to stick till retirement, but, on the other hand, there are not many places in mid and top management to accommodate all the aging engineers.
Also, how secure is a career in management these days? If you want to change a company or lost your position as a VP at some company, what is your chance to find a similar role when you are 50+?

mooreds · Answer

Do you want to say purely remote?If so, here are some other options:* Contracting* Consulting* Teaching courses* Writing books* Remote lead (as you mentioned)I don't know anything about your skillset or desires but I'd look for something higher leverage than just being a developer. Own more of the problem space.As far as staying remote, I think there are more and more companies willing to entertain this, especially if you are a senior developer.

pkalinowski · Answer

I believe there is not much choice beside independent consultancy if you want to stay in tech, but not go into management.

purplezooey · Answer

Not many options. Move to SF and tough it out, really.