Specialists earn more than manual workers at the cost of fragility and the risk of becoming non-competitive:
[...] a specialist has acquired a lot of specialized knowledge at a cheap unit cost in order to be competitive. However, given the low unit cost, this knowledge is not a solid basis for further professional growth; rather, it's expendable. The means to survival for a specialist is his ability to rapidly learn new subjects, quickly produce saleable works, and then move on. This is called skimming. It's the same strategy pursued by weeds, to use an ecological analogy. At the expert level (see Gauging mastery), a person needs 80-100 hours a week to stay competitive. For masters level, it's 60-80 hours, and to remain competent requires 40-60 hours a week.
— Jacob Lund Fisker, book "Early Retirement Extreme"
To remain competitive in IT, you clearly don't need 80–100 hours per week—that's overkill. But the general message is quite interesting (even if somewhat clichéd).
How not to end up in a bad position? Overall, the advice is also quite clichéd, here's what ChatGPT says:
Knowledge becomes obsolete quickly. Technical skills in development are "cheap units of knowledge": language, framework, approach. In 2–5 years, much needs to be relearned.
The key skill is fast learning. Developers constantly forget the old and retrain for new technologies. Specialization doesn't provide a stable foundation; it's important to be able to adapt.
Competition is not only based on skills. When many reach the required level, hiring decisions rely on secondary factors: communication, "fit", presentation, stress resistance.
Career is a pyramid, not a ladder. There are fewer positions at higher levels, and growth depends not only on competence. It's easy to end up in a role where it's difficult to be competent (Peter Principle).
Burnout is a systemic risk. Specialists who identify themselves with one technology suffer more when the market changes or knowledge becomes devalued.
Survival strategy — meta-skills. It's more valuable not to "know Django," but to be able to:
- learn quickly
- think architecturally
- understand system principles
- effectively use AI tools
- develop soft skills
These are things that become obsolete the slowest.
IT is essentially about adaptation. A developer is successful when not tied to a tool, but able to solve problems and switch between technologies without pain.