[aiisahik]

Your question is how can you continue to be compensated highly in this fast changing industry that already compensates very well. It's a tough question and I don't think anyone has a magic bullet for you.

Here's some general tips from the business side:

- When you are struggling to compete, differentiate yourself and find a smaller, more specialized audience. Don't attempt to compete head on unless you believe you have an upper hand.

- There are skillset that are always subject to the whims of the day but there are also skillsets that do not: among them are (1) the ability to sell yourself and (2) the ability to manage and motivate others. These two skills have stood the test of time and if you commit yourself to at least getting better at them, so will you.

I'm a developer in my 30s who retrained after being a lawyer. I flat out tell people I'm not that great a developer. I have never gotten a job from having to prove my technical skill and have not yet needed to. I rely on my network, find a specialized niche market (startups that have just figured out how to make money but don't yet have a product orientated tech leader), and I impress upon them non-coding abilities (I ask them a load of questions about their business and operations and talk about strategy, product, organization challenges - things they don't get from a typical developer candidate). You should not adopt the same strategy but maybe think about what non-technical skills makes you differentiated and where those skills might be needed most.

[syndacks]

I'm sure your previous lawyer skills were looked upon favorably by companies you've been hired by? I'm curious -- do companies think they're getting a "two for one" e.g. a developer who knows some law if/when they need to ask someone in-house a quick question? Do you market that ability during interviews, or do you explicitly say you're not looking to offer legal advice?

FWIW I'm a self-taught developer who used to teach HS math before making the switch. I've found that both of my developer offers were partially to heavily influenced by my previous career. One company is ed-tech (heavily influenced) the other not so much, but enough of a ed-focused mission that they found those previous skills of mine useful.

I share this because I think previous experience is one of the differentiating factors for folks looking to land their first developer role, and should be something they consider how to best leverage when looking for opportunities (which is somewhat off-topic from OPs question).

[aiisahik]

I wasn't hired for my legal skills or experience and the companies I worked at had their own outside counsel that they paid for. I was sometimes asked to get involved in legal issues but that was less than 1% of my work. The founders understood that my value was far higher on technical and product than on legal. But I also tried hard to set myself apart and to bring a different mindset to product and tech that might have been influenced by my time in law.

The main point is still to leverage experience and skills that are valuable outside of technical ability that might be out of fashion in a few years. It doesn't matter if that experience is in teaching, legal or just being an extremely likable person.

I routinely see a lot of articles that are over 10 years old making it to the front page of Hacker News. Do this mental exercise: Imagine writing a long form blog article about what you are currently working on / improving about yourself. Imagine posting that blog article on Hacker News in 10 years time. Would it get a good amount of upvotes?