What if you have 20 years of programming experience and can't find a job?

Ageism is real nomatter how many skills you have.

I think it is a difficult decision if you for instance switch to management. It might make you very dependent on a specific company and as your dev skills might decline it will make you less marketable

I just turned 30 and I can finally call myself a senior. I’m struggling to choose a path forward, do I broaden my field or specialize down...
I have vast experience with JavaScript and web in general, but I see that my main value from more junior developers are they can be really good application developers but when it comes to building architectural or library/framework type of code they really struggle and they rarely build abstractions that last. So I feel myself coding less and less and I coaching more or making product decisions, sometimes I prototype something or build a base abstraction the team can build on top.

I’m 6 years in, and I feel like I should switch to other companies just so don’t have a stain on my CV.

It looks like our window is very short

I belive that us, as software developers and the people arround us (family,firiends) have to realize that our career is VERY different than others , and this is a very underrated topic ,meanwhile a nurse,doctor,mechanic,electrician,plumber,dentist,teacher...etc can be at the same job for 30 years or more and each day that passes they become more and more relevant to the industry even if they almost do the same thing every day , we do the opposite, each day that passes we become less relevant to the indrustry if we dont look forward as you said. And belived or not this even happens to some people finishing school (cs degree), YES, I dont know if you have dicussed this topic but you can have a very hard time in terms of skill advancement when your school doesnt provide you with a good technical -hands on-specific set of skills and you keep focused more in you degree-advancement,tests or other mandatory courses, so after you finish school becomes very hard to find a job and you have to start studying and focus all that technical skills ascpect of your career or go to a bootcamp because even studying the cs degree is not enough (of course is not ). Nice content greetings.

great video, i enjoy your videos and am a happy subscriber!

Just to share my personal experience. Most of my developer team is around 50 or more. They have top tier soft skills, guess that comes with age (think that is equally important, if not more, then programming skills). And they are godlike programmers, solving any issues easily, and helping me when I am stuck.

This is this career specifics. CS is not fundamental science like math. CS skills are extremely perishable. You, Frederik, in your 50s, will face the same thing you are talking in this video. Even becoming an engineering manager will not save the situation. Unless you completely change you career or retire in your 40s. Sad but true.