> Also a weird tip is change jobs every 2 to 3 years. Companies tend to get less cushy and more process oriented over time.

Hell is an agile sprint system that has been optimised to require 10 hour days.

What's your experience with EU jobs? I do get the idea that they are not really fanatic about chasing the latest tech at least in my view.

However, I do spend only 1-3 years with each job. Generally I work as a permatemp worker where promotions aren't expected of me. So I'm usually in a position where it's easy for the company to lay me off (as it has happened before).

It'll depend on the company and country, but generally it is less hectic because of stricter work hour regulations, vacation, etc. They'll always be the workaholics of course.

It helps that the culture/mentality is different from the start, but if you work for FAANG-like places or start-ups, it probably not hugely better. Vice versa, I'm sure you could find a more laid-back workplace in the US, might just be a bit rarer. To be honest, I've seen some coasters in FAANG-type places, too. The bigger the place, the more opportunity there is to slip through the cracks, but it's a risk. On the opposite end, in a smaller place your expertise goes further, so you might be able to get away with putting in less effort day-to-day. Plus fewer meetings.

In any case, and as other commenters have mentioned, the easiest path is to pick "boring" technology that still super valuable to the business, with a long shelf-life, but not sexy. You become proficient in it, maybe you already, don't mind working with it, and you're set.

There's still the tricky part of making it future-proof, but a lot of technology sticks around longer than you'd expect.

> the easiest path is to pick "boring" technology that still super valuable to the business, with a long shelf-life, but not sexy.

Would PHP and Ruby still fit this? Not just the "boring" part but also the long shelf life? These have been my main standbys but a lot of things in the web are moving away from them. Should I jump back to things I haven't used in a long time? I don't know how much Magento has changed over the years but I get some recruiter emails about it, even 8 years after I last used it on the job.

Big caveat: I don't know much about your position or where you're located. Sometimes that matters; Cobol, Fortran, Ada, Perl, etc are still around but job opportunities vary. If I had to guess, places that use them are less likely to offer remote working soon. Also, nobody can predict the future. How longer shelf-life do you need? 10 years? 20 years? You might've moved to e.g. product or program management by then. I want an easy life, too, and don't plan on sticking to programming the whole time. I figure I'll know more in ~10-15 years. Anyway...

Ruby on Rails is still well and alive (see Ruby 3.0, and the recent mimemagic issue), overall I think PHP is more widely deployed (and alive, see the recent malicious commits to PHP. worth exploiting like that = people use it and update it). As brundolf said, Wordpress is everywhere.

You could go off the one you prefer more, but I'd definitely recommend reaching out to contacts and just casually surveying if they know what places use what to give you an idea of your local situation.

Here's one possibility: if you have PHP experience, maybe become a Wordpress expert. The legions of legacy Wordpress sites out there will outlive us all, and most of the rest of us don't want to touch them with a 10ft pole.

I think if top salary isn’t an issue, then these are fine technologies to find a legacy maintenance job, or even greenfield. I think they are fine platforms but fashions are what they are.

Yeah only UK experience but probably similar on the continent in the EU. In my experience as a .NET developer the latest tech isn’t chased which might be a good thing. I think reasonably modern tech is the easiest to work with. Too old and it gets hard and too modern you are playing catch up too much.

I've been trying to find a job in Germany. It's either

- Event driven cloud master with k8s and docker knowledge - PHP developer, but Typo3, Magento or Wordpress - Tool user, actually not a real developer but a semi designer

Then there's the - Frontend developer master of virtually everything, studied, knows all the languages and is a designer as well - Backend developer Python, Java, less Ruby, much PHP with Symfony and/or Zend

All of those make me blergh

Oh and they pay 3-4k € which is an insult.

I have given up. Once my cash runs out I'm taking social security and die a depressed bitter man.

Being self-employed the internet is owned by the big companies and everything is getting harder as time passes. Not because of tech, but companies and regulations.

For instance BaFin, the Germany regulatory institution for finance. I wanted a certificate so I could automate bank account checks, because FinTS3.0 now requires a OTP for every action you do. So no more automated bank account checks. Now you need XS2A which requires a certificate and registration. The cert costs a sum every 2 years, which the German state printshop receives (Bundesdruckerei). I asked them how I can register, I want to register, tell me how please. After 3 mails which were sent over 2 months I'm none the wiser. Yet I see over 500 companies already registered. I don't have a German name, that's probably why.

Next example. I have a website that compares dsl cable fiber tariffs. The domain is old has I partnered with all kinds of telcos via the Zanox affiliate network. Something happened, they rebranded to Awin and the partnership was cancelled. I've then recently redone the site, made it more modern. Every Telco except the German Telekom accepted the affiliate application. Only the German Telekom declined for NewSpeak reasons that don't explain anything at all.

Thanks to the corrupt Axel Voss the EU has redone copyright and put hosts in jail with 1 leg. If you're a host, you allow people to post messages on your leased hardware and one of the free users posts something illegal, you will be liable for what the user had posted.

So what's left? Writing 10 Best x/y/z spam articles?

I'm overqualified and underappreciated. I have written distributed systems out of necessity, not because it was hipster. I've had top 1000 alexa ranked sites. If I had them nowadays I could make a living, but back in 2006 they barely paid the hosting costs.

What can I do anymore? I don't know. Take some shit job just for the money? Pretend I'm interested in their crap? I really don't care. I can't work under someone. I can't accept someone being my boss, in the negative sense. I also don't like people. People suck. Too many negative experiences with them. Especially work people. I don't want to live in an environment where you have to watch every word you say. And 15-20 years ago society was much more tolerant for negativity. Nowadays you have the politically supercorrect kids. Look at Stallman, HOW DARE HE. I mean WTF. So he returns and Red Hat of all companies is like "ZOMG THE NERVE" because he questioned the integrity of the 17 year old girl? What bullshit. And this is just symptomatic for today's society. When I see those glass wearing shaved haircuts I'm becoming aggressive, with a suit preferably. Whatever I'm rambling and am a bit drunk.

I work for a German fintech who pays well and we're hiring. If you're interested, LMK where I can contact you