what are the options for java developers after retirement from working for some company?

[Satyaprakash Joshii]

Although retirement is far in my case but just that there has been this thought and curiosity about this question. Currently I work for an organization in india as software engineer. I am aware that people earn more IT than many other professions and also aware that at end of their career they would not get any pension like government jobs.I am also aware of the concept for early retirement from IT unlike government jobs where they retire at age of 60 So what are some of the options after that. Is there something they can do after quiting to do java development for some company? Can they start something on their own?Anything related to java. Just what to know what all options open up.

[Jayesh A Lalwani]

People who "retire" early in the US tend to be

a) Work for 20-30 years as an employee. Earn a decent salary. Save for retirement. Once they have enough money in their retirement fund, they leave their job. Most people like these generally prefer semi-retirement. Usually they save enough in their 30s that the savings will grow so they can fully retire at 65. Between 45-65, they take "easy" jobs or work part time, so they can have a better standard of living
b) Join a early stage startup, and hit big. If you hit big in an early stage startup, you can sit at home and play XBox all day. Most of the people who do this get bored of XBox, and become angel investors. They go around funding other startups. If they earn enough money, they might join VCs
c) Entrepreneurs. These are people who like building companies. Most succesful entrepreneurs in tech are "serial" entrepreneurs. They build a succesful company. Sell it. They take what they learned and build even more succesful company. Sell it. Build even more succesful company. Sell it. These people never "retire", although they could retire if they want to.

I don;t know about India. I guess option a) is available universally. I don't think India has a viable startup scene yet.

[Jeanne Boyarsky]

Satyaprakash Joshii wrote:Anything related to java. Just what to know what all options open up.

Why Java? Other languages are likely to be hot in 10-20 years (or more) when you retire. You probably could consult working on the "old legacy Java systems" at that point. Or do something new and fun that hasn't even been invented yet!

[arulk pillai]

Work as freelancer/consultant for 8 months and take some time off for 4 months . It is important that you have good network and ability to find work. Also, have some passive income generation streams.

[Chan Ag]

Although retirement is far in my case ...

Everything said, it is important to plan for the retirement. Yes the retirement might not be near for you ( it a'int so for me too ), but it is not too late to plan for it ( the easiest way is to save enough and invest in something that will give you good returns ).

Forget retirement, you never know when the next recession might hit. And that's still not the worst.

[Satyaprakash Joshii]

Thank You

Most people like these generally prefer semi-retirement.

What does this semi retirement involve?

Between 45-65, they take "easy" jobs or work part time, so they can have a better standard of living

What kind of easy jobs are these?

Join a early stage startup, and hit big

Entrepreneurs. These are people who like building companies. Most succesful entrepreneurs in tech are "serial" entrepreneurs. They build a succesful company.

Does joining an early stage startup mean sort of opening your own company. Enterpreneurs here mean open a company ,find clients,give job to few employees and handle there projects?

Most of the people who do this get bored of XBox, and become angel investors. They go around funding other startups. If they earn enough money, they might join VCs

What is VCs

[Chan Ag]

Semi retirement -- there are no hard and fast rules governing what it involves. It just means you're probably doing easy jobs -- and easy here could be a relative term ( though not necessarily like say you have worked all your previous 20 years as an SME ( Subject Matter Expert ) in derivative trade and such so you could become a functional consultant or so cause understanding that stuff is easy for you ), or working fewer hours so you have a steady source of income. At the same time you have enough time to give to your family, or to pursue your passion. You live a laid back life.

Easy jobs could be anything. If you are a skilled musician, you could give part time music lessons in a music school. You could do part time consulting. It really depends on your interest and the demand in your area and what you are good at and what you want to do.

Anyone joining a promising early stage start up has decent chances of making big money. You could join as a developer, as a VP, as a manager, as a share holder etc. Generally these companies offer you stock options ( RSUs ) at the time you join and if these companies get listed in the public domain, and if their stocks do well, you might make big money.

There are also several companies that just offer stocks but don't go into public domain for several years and they like to call themselves a start up even though they have operated for as long as 10 years or more! So at the time an offer is made, it's good to do some research too. :-)

There are quite a few really promising start ups doing extremely well in India ( I'm guessing you are from India because of your name ). I could write names, but it must be against the rules I guess.

VCs are Venture Capitalists. Google about them.

Edit - Personal experience of working in a 10 year old start up warns me enough to consider a lot of things before joining such companies. We were working more than 10-12 hours a day. For several months. Every feature regardless of its complexity had to be developed ( including unit tested, minimal integration tested with new and old tests for the CI tool ) within 3-4 days. There were days when our team had worked for several days continuously and you are working cause every one else is working too. They pay extremely well but can squeeze the blood out of you. I mean not every company does that, but many of my friends in the start ups feel like I do. This is not a rant, just the hard truth. Sometimes I feel that 'agile' is the most abused word by many.

[Jayesh A Lalwani]

An easy job could be a government job. Or you could be a high end consultant. If you have specialized skills, you can get by with just working 20 hours a week as a consultant. For example, COBOL programmers make a lot of money consulting at companies that are still running on COBOL. Java is more or less the COBOL of the 21st century. You can bet that 20-30 years from now, retired Java programmers will be in similar state.

Generally joining an early stage startup implies that you are one of the first few employees of the startup. Usually, the way startups start is couple of people come up with an idea, and start implementing it. These are the founders. Of course, between these people, they probably don't have all the skills, so they either try to get other people on board, or hire people who have those skills. The founders generally do not draw a salary. Everyone else who comes on board gets some combination of "salary" and stock options. The disadvantage of joining a company like this is that you don;t know when it's going to go under. The founders are either self-funding the company, or they get someone else to give them money. Usually, you don't have income. THe money dries up, and the company closes. THe advantage of working in such a company is that it might be succesful, and someone else will buy the company. The stock options can be worth hundreds of thousands or even million dollars. It's a high risk job, with a high reward. This works for people who have enough skills to now really worry about employability.

VC means Venture Capital. There are companies whose sole business is investing in startups. These companies are called Venture Capitals. They buy stock in the company. SO, let's say you have $100K. And someone you know started a company, and give him $100K for a 50% share in the company. Now, you own 50% of the company. 5 years down the line, the company gets bough for $10million. You get $5million because you own 50% of the company. Turning $100K to $5million is not a bad investment. However, it's risky. 90% of startups fail eventually. So, if you have $100K and you invest in one company, then there is a 90% chance that you will lose all your money. So, what do people do? They get together and form a VC firm. Let's say 10 people get together and put $100K each to have $1million. THey invest that $1million in 10 companies. 9 of them fail, 1 of them gets them $50million. They divide the $50million among the 10 people, and now each of them has earned $5million. You reduce the risk by banding together.

A lot of people who work in startups, and are lucky to hit big in startup, have lot of extra money. So, what they do is get together and become a VC.

[Satyaprakash Joshii]

An easy job could be a government job. Or you could be a high end consultant.

In India generally the maximum allowed (cut off ) age for applying for government job is usually 30. Anyone retiring from job but be surely well past the cut off age for government age.In such a case how is this feasible.
How does one get consultant job? what is the way to get it.

[Jeanne Boyarsky]

Satyaprakash Joshii wrote:In India generally the maximum allowed (cut off ) age for applying for government job is usually 30. Anyone retiring from job but be surely well past the cut off age for government age.In such a case how is this feasible. How does one get consultant job? what is the way to get it.

Jayesh isn't in India. His comment wasn't country specific. Interesting that it is legal to age discriminate for government jobs in India!

In the US, there are consulting companies. There are also recruiters for consulting jobs.

[Jayesh A Lalwani]

Yeah. Jeanne is right. I'm not sure how it will work in India. I was speaking more generically.

The Indian IT market is not mature enough to have high-end consultants. Until 2000s, most programmers would leave India once they were senior enough. So, the perception in the US has been that you go to India to get junior programmers. The perception is changing slowly as the Indian programmers who choose to stay in India mature. You can expect to get a senior programmer with 10-15 years experience in India, but not a high end consultant

I'm pretty sure that in the future, as these people age and become more specialized, you might find high end consultancy jobs being outsourced to India. I don't know how the specifics will work. I can't see the future. I do think that as long as you are proficient in Java, you will have some way to live your life comfortably.

[Satyaprakash Joshii]

Is it a good option to keep collecting stocks of companies while you earn well in IT industry and after retiring from IT industry do stock trading?

[Karthik Shiraly]

Satyaprakash Joshii wrote:Is it a good option to keep collecting stocks of companies while you earn well in IT industry and after retiring from IT industry do stock trading?

Most of the older IT people I know are more into buying up real estate and apartments, with plans to rent them out or sell them after a decade at 2x to 3x current prices.
This is in Bangalore, where real estate is in high demand. Same is the case with other IT oriented cities - Pune, Hyderabad, Gurgaon.

Stock, mutual funds, angel investing and things like that have their participants, but I doubt many of them see them as a retirement nest egg.

[Satyaprakash Joshii]

Thanks. What about the option to open a software training institute where one can teach Java- JavaEE. Apart from financial benefits it can also bring good interaction with people. What if this is done in combination with stock trading and freelancing?

[Karthik Shiraly]

Satyaprakash Joshii wrote:Thanks. What about the option to open a software training institute where one can teach Java- JavaEE. Apart from financial benefits it can also bring good interaction with people. What if this is done in combination with stock trading and freelancing?

I'm not the right person to ask about software training institute or stock trading. You should try to find people who are doing those things and ask what their experiences were/are.
Come to that, I'm probably not the right person to ask about freelancing either, though I did it for a few years; most of my experiences were negative and I stay away from it now.

[broad kenny]

Satyaprakash Joshii wrote:Although retirement is far in my case but just that there has been this thought and curiosity about this question. Currently I work for an organization in india as software engineer. I am aware that people earn more IT than many other professions and also aware that at end of their career they would not get any pension like government jobs.I am also aware of the concept for early retirement from IT unlike government jobs where they retire at age of 60 So what are some of the options after that. Is there something they can do after quiting to do java development for some company? Can they start something on their own?Anything related to java. Just what to know what all options open up.

In the field of innovation, you're either adapting new abilities, or you're falling obsolete. However, what happens to more established software engineers and innovation pioneers who are searching for fascinating low maintenance work after retirement?
Actually a devoted software engineer commonly turned into a developer since they adore the art. It isn't generally something you resign from. A developer has numerous different entryways open to them in retirement.
The accompanying are a couple of illustrations of a portion of the open doors you might have when the day to resign

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