[foobiekr]

As browsing any discussion on recruiting and interviewing with illustrate, hiring is already fucked up, and adding age plus a multi year gap would make getting a new job quite hard, let alone one that matches the compensation one has today.

[geekster777]

Sure, landing the same tech job may not be feasible. As I mentioned, the big nest egg should ease that blow. You can instead get a lower paying tech job you're plenty qualified for. You can also get a job doing something unrelated to tech, like Uber/gig work, secretary, waiter, creating on Etsy, or really anything. A disruption to early retirement isn't going to be so dramatic that you need to get your same 6 figure income as before in order to stay afloat. It's something where an extra $15k a year coupled with some cost cutting will get you through a recession with minimal damages (cost of living dependent of course, but I'm assuming a conservative ~$60k/yr expenses). Landing something more lucrative creates a noticeable surplus.

[mywittyname]

This is a risk I think that people don't give enough consideration.

I know a guy who FIREd a while ago, long before we called it FIRE, and he's had a heck of a time landing another corporate job. He had a very successful business development firm and took a buyout from partners so he could move away from NYC and spend time with his kids. His kids are all grown up now and he's been looking for jobs and...crickets.

[ghaff]

If you stayed active in relevant circles, perhaps doable given personal contacts.

But I agree in general. If someone retires at 40 and realizes 5-10 years later this isn't working out, that's a pretty big uphill climb for conventional professional employment.