I'm 30s and feel old. The biggest thing is that I don't have the motivation to be fast and work extra hours. I look at the new college grads and remember those days when I didn't have a family and could put in extra hours, believing I had a career.
Trust me you have plenty of time, and your family is more important. Kids grow up fast though, so don't blink - you don't want to miss a thing.
Best skill is to manage your work time well and set boundaries. Working overtime is a sign of not having the right structures in place, and being disciplined about those boundaries is a force multiplier - it'll force you to be rigorous about what's valuable. You can make up for the lack of discipline by working overtime to an extent, but it's less effective.
My 2c (im 40. Been IC dev for 10 years, CTO, VP, and now an 'aerchitect'):
[Your current company] doesn't matter. Your family matters 10000 times more. Dont expect to grow in your company. As a 30 year old there are TONS of companies and startups looking for you. In fact now that you dont need a job is a good time to comb the market and apply to a couple of them. That way you get some experience in the current hiring process, you tune your "value" as a professional and you can ask for crazy money (knowing that if you ask for 2X your current salary plus WFH, if a company gives it to you, you score, otherwise you are cool on your job).
My 30 to 40s were amazing professional years. I was in 3 startups and grew 2 of them from the ground up. That also helped me grow myself to where I'm now.
Yeah, but I need the money to support my family and there aren't many options in my region.
I did apply to one, but never heard back. It was about 2x salary. It even seemed interesting - Android dev for a medical device startup. I guess my Android skills weren't advanced enough (I just have a couple very simple apps).
Yeah at around 35 - pulling all nighters actually just kinda starts to hurt… like for more then a day. Also I think no matter the age you’ll always feel old but just remember your not actually old until literally no one else is older then you… think 90s then appreciate being 30s you have 60 years left at least!
Change employer if you can. When I moved from small webshops to a consulting corporation that served very rich clients pace dropped by an order of magnitude while salary increased. As a rule of thumb you should change employers every two years to avoid underselling yourself and stagnation. You'll rarely get your market worth if you remove yourself from the job market to stick with a single company for years.
