Perfectly echos my thoughts as a 25+ year veteran engineer who has been laid off 3 times. Your writing style is poetic as well. I would add a few more. 1) The

Perfectly echos my thoughts as a 25+ year veteran engineer who has been laid off 3 times. Your writing style is poetic as well. I would add a few more. 1) There is no permanancy in tech, only impermanancy - hence, stay on your toes, be a learning machine, and not be attached to your laurels. You could one day be a hero, and the next day a zero. 2) Bandwagons come and go - internet, web, cloud, ml etc etc. Be a learning machine with a strong grip on the fundamentals of the math and the science. 3) Most of us are picking up lottery tickets - but confuse skill with luck. An early google engineer may walk with a swagger, but he/she has been lucky. 4) Keep saving for the rainy day, as they usually will come. In your financial calculations, do not take on long term obligations assuming your job will last.