I get it.. mid-40s, married with one kid. I've worked at a bunch of startups since 2000. I am currently in my second stint in a public company. I've been

I get it.. mid-40s, married with one kid. I've worked at a bunch of startups since 2000. I am currently in my second stint in a public company. I've been at my current job 8 years now. The first 3 was when we were a private startup. 5 years ago we were acquired. This is a really long stint for me, my previous long one was 6 years but there were a fair # of 2 year stints and also I did 2 one year stints at startups that were not a good match for me. The thing is: - The job remains more interesting than a lot of the stuff recruiters contact me about. Some of this is the space I'm in, and most recruiters are trying to recruit out of that space, not a sideways move into a similar company. - My TC is off the charts compared to what it was now that stock started vesting. I have to explain to recruiters their sweetheart deal would likely be a $100k+ pay cut unless my current employer tanks, simply because I sell a decent chunk of stock every year at my FA's recommendation. - Basically over time the upside for startups has gotten more and more skewed towards the institutional investors with engineers being the absolute bottom of the totem pole. Taking a pay cut to do that feels like a HUGE gamble now because I have never had an upside for an exit that equal what I sold in RSUs last year at the public company. - Current work/life balance is excellent. - 60% remote, no real pressure to go in any more and no real trouble if I need to work less than 40% in office in a given week. (I like going in though.) - Office is close to home, minimal commute, company/office culture is good - Current company is foundational and has been very very long term stable with mature/conservative management. So yes, not sure what's going to happen, but I don't even have to ride this that long to possibly retire early as I've been living well below my means for a long time now, I'm not a "show off money" person at all. If things are bad in my mid-50s it's almost not going to matter because retirement will become an option if I can stay on this path. If things go south and age discrimination becomes an issue I'd easily be able to go start a side project to try and create income and be in a semi-retired mode in my 50s.