46, and not a software developer, but I recruited for 20 years for startups and now I'm a resume writer and career consultant that works with lots of older engi

46, and not a software developer, but I recruited for 20 years for startups and now I'm a resume writer and career consultant that works with lots of older engineers. The ones that are happy seem to not stay in one place too long (either moving internally to different projects or changing jobs), so they are always learning new things and often meeting new people. I think a lot of 40+ engineers are unnecessarily skeptical about startups and smaller companies. Sure, the chances of any individual startup going under are pretty obvious, but once you're in that ecosystem it's not hard to get picked up by others in the ecosystem. Everyone from that startup is going to find work at another, and they'll bring along some friends, and your network gets pretty spread out pretty quickly which provides more and more opportunities. I'm not even sure what "making it big at 40+" means - if you mean building something technically significant, many won't hit that goal. If it means having a good paycheck and lifestyle, that's attainable for most skilled devs it seems.