[Kon-Peki]

SWE has always been in a boom and bust cycle. Sometimes they love you and pay accordingly, sometimes they hate you and look for any reason to possibly get rid of you.

Some of the best advice I've ever received from senior engineers was to live below your means and to have a high savings rate. You don't have to go to the FIRE extreme and definitely shouldn't make yourself miserable.

What would I do about LLMs? I'd live like this could end up as the last high-paying job of my career. Aside from that, I wouldn't worry about it.

[runamok]

Hope for the best, prepare for the worst. I am in my late 40s and based on the ageism I saw in SV theorized the gravy train would come once I hit 50ish unless I went into management. Based on my performance compared to peers I feel relatively secure but more importantly I live well within my means and save and invest a good portion of my net income.

[throwaway123198]

Sounds like a pretty unsustainable career to me

[ativzzz]

Good thing the high pay balances it out. Also the fact that literally every company needs them to some extent means you can find the specific tradeoffs that work for you