Anyways, the megacorp career path is lined up in technology/IC and management tracks. The expectation now is move into management track because I have done well in delivering, defining roadmaps, and mentoring people. It is kind of the agreed plan for the next year, but I have developed cold feet. While I can not compete with the young ones in terms of hours they can put in and also the more recent learnings, I am finally starting to connect the technical dots after my decade long break and I enjoy building the code and the tools/products. For financial reasons, I do want to continue in a well paying job for the next decade. No experimentation as my previous experiment and mistakes along the path depleted my savings. So the goal is to be a cog-in-the-machine for at least a few years and a decade if I can. I think the managerial role will work out, but if it does not, I fear re-learning hands-on work will be so much more difficult this time around. [ I have thought about program management and at this point that seems to be my 3rd preference. ]
How will HN crowd look at this? Or maybe it is a reddit question :)
If you’ve passed your midlife crisis, you have all the resources you need to answer that question yourself. And you’re the only person who can.
If you want input, there’s more than enough actual wisdom literature out there to tap into.
You’re working backwards from death at this point, not forward from birth. And that is a very good thing.
Hint: money starts becoming an increasingly unreal thing, if it ever was real to begin with.