Software engineering is a field that evolves and you need to stay up to date. It's far from the only field like that. When you get out of school (or whatever p

Software engineering is a field that evolves and you need to stay up to date. It's far from the only field like that. When you get out of school (or whatever path you took), you are knowledgeable about the current state of things. If you're an entry level engineer, chances are you'll have people teaching you what you don't know, mentoring you, and generally expect you to learn with them. Of course, as high as software salaries are these days, your expectations then are still lower than the older folks. Chances are you have less things to pay for outside of student loans in the US. As you get older, you can do 2 things: you can passively coast as long as you can, or you can actively keep yourself up to date. If you choose the later, your knowledge stays current and you keep adding experience, making you more and more valuable. Short of health issues getting in the way, that will never stop. You just keep getting better. If you passively coast though, what you know becomes less and less relevant. For the first couple of years, experience gain >> the part of your knowledge that is outdated, so you still go upward. There's a limit to that. That 35-40 yo line, assuming you started in your early to mid 20s, sound about right for when you lost more than you gained. And thus you're no longer worth the price of admission you're likely expecting to pay for your kids/mortgage/401k/whatever. And that's when things get rough. But if you play your cards right? There's no problem.