&gt;As a developer over 40, my biggest challenge is actually that the management has come to expect weekend work and late nights as the norm.<p>my experience is that this isn&#x27;t the case, at least not where I am.  Last place I was at, the guy who came in weekends was the first of us to be let go.    (granted, the first guy to get promoted to direct-hire status also worked more hours than average, but he didn&#x27;t come in weekends, and he certainly put in way fewer hours in the office than the guy who was let go first.)<p>There is quite often a correlation between my perception of a person not being very effective and staying super late.<p>&gt;what I am pointing out is that enterprise s&#x2F;w development process is based on the fundamental principle of getting barely skilled people who can put in the hours and keep their mouth shut. But these jobs pay a lot more than startup jobs and have a lot more security.<p>Eh, that&#x27;s kind of the space I am in right now, only I&#x27;m more ops than dev (nearly every job is a mixture of both, most are tilted one way or the other.I am maybe 1&#x2F;3rd dev, 2&#x2F;3rds operations, my title is &#x27;SysAdmin&#x27; at the moment)<p>The thing is about the corporate keyword jobs?  You are right that they are looking for replaceable cogs, and it usually pays better than startup work, but it is very &#x27;easy come, easy go&#x27;  - expectations of contractors are super low, and contractor interviews are super short, so while you are very replaceable, so are they.<p>Where I am, in silicon valley, direct hire jobs at the places where you&#x27;d get those easy contractor gigs are kind of a different animal.  They pay even more, really by quite a lot, and getting them is a combination of passing a bunch of IQ-test like puzzles and complex social signaling.  Now, most of the people I know with those jobs are actually pretty good, so maybe the sorting process is better than I think?  My problem is that first, I barely qualify, IQ wise, at least for the best of those companies, and then I am, well, I kind of am a capitalist, and part of the complex social signaling is pretending that you really want to be part of that advertising collective, which is super difficult for me, personally.  I mean, I don&#x27;t mind selling my sword to an advertising collective, but I am not the sort to &#x27;drink the kool-aid&#x27;  -  Advertising is not making the world a better place, and I know that them hiring me is a transactional sort of thing. I&#x27;m not joining a collective, and I have difficulty pretending it&#x27;s a collective.