[daly]

As a retired software developer with 50 years experience I can say that he's unlikely to get hired. The software business is very age-biased. And, since you mentioned that he was the "director of a center", that implies that he "retired into management" rather than actually continuing to develop software. Plus, as a manager there is no time to keep up with the leading edge. In software, especially now, as the Red Queen said: "Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!"

However, retirement is amazing. I spend most of my days on my own projects, which usually involves taking several courses on youtube. For instance, I'm working on a problem that requires a camera so I'm watching "The Ancient Secrets of Computer Vision" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5WSV6CXsxs&list=PLjMXczUzEY...). Nobody would pay me to learn how to compute the robots grasping pose of a 3D printed object from its GCODE description.

Retirement is great fun and the perfect opportunity to spend 18 hours a day, 7 days a week (modulo random naps :-) ) hacking on whatever software that strikes your fancy. Enjoy it while it lasts.

[ramtatatam]

I'm nowhere near of 50 years of experience but even with my 15 I can see the trend you describe. I feel natural progression is to move towards management or closer to business. If I am lucky enough to gain 50 years of experience I aim to do software as hobby (same as I was "feeling" it when I was a teenager) and gain business experience including network of contacts so I can do consulting.. Of course, best scenario would be not to have to work at that point but I plan for the worst.

[daly]

Every programmer I know retired into management. They made more, sometimes a lot more, money than I did. I had 8 "opportunities" to do that. I turned them all down.

My reasoning is that I don't understand why I would move from a subject I know really well (programming) to one that I don't know at all (management).

Plus I know I'm neither good at self-management nor good with people so wisdom seems to dictate remaining a programmer.

Note that all of the former programmers all claimed they wanted to either return-to or continue-to program. One of them even had it written into his contract that he could program "in his spare time at work" (who has that?). Not one of the managers returned to programming later in life.

Programming is hard, a lot of self-inflicted pain, and the ultimate source of frustration. Few people want to return to that once they have "escaped".

Know thyself.