It seems a lot more possible these days, both socially and economically, to go into "partial retirement" at around age 30.
Developers can pull this off without much effort. 2-20X the pay for our work, little expectation of company loyalty nor stigma for resume gaps or job hopping, crazy skewed market to ensure that a new contract is only a Facebook/LinkedIn/Twitter update away. Why would anybody spend their 30s not taking several months a year off in that situation?
Naturally, I'm biased a bit, since that was me for a dozen years or so. But there aught to be a skinny little blue line on that chart for us. And I bet it's a lot less skinny today than it was back when I started doing it.
Developers can pull this off without much effort. 2-20X the pay for our work, little expectation of company loyalty nor stigma for resume gaps or job hopping, crazy skewed market to ensure that a new contract is only a Facebook/LinkedIn/Twitter update away. Why would anybody spend their 30s not taking several months a year off in that situation?
Naturally, I'm biased a bit, since that was me for a dozen years or so. But there aught to be a skinny little blue line on that chart for us. And I bet it's a lot less skinny today than it was back when I started doing it.