It may be the case that for a variety of reasons, salaries don't creep up that much past 8 years as it's just more difficult to either signal or create value then.
Despite the fact that a polygot dev. with tons of experience is always good to have around, and you need some weighing in on big decisions ... most dev is just dev - and a competent mid-tier developer with good habits can do the job in most cases.
In most careers, you top out around 8 years of experience for individual contributor. After that, you add value through scale of managing direct reports.
Yes, exactly. Diminishing marginal returns after 8 years.
That said, I really wonder about management - a talented senior dev who can write clean code, is polygot and knows their way around everything, gives good estimates, communicates well ...
I think that might worth more than anything really.
Often tech is more like a sports team where individual contributors matter more than those making other decisions, i.e. coaches.
(That said, there could be a serious market inefficiency here: a spectacular coach may be worth more than great players, it's just really difficult to measure!)
Despite the fact that a polygot dev. with tons of experience is always good to have around, and you need some weighing in on big decisions ... most dev is just dev - and a competent mid-tier developer with good habits can do the job in most cases.