I would argue that a coasting grey beard could easily be better than a mid level dev with maybe 5 years experience.

I run a contract shop and all my best DB guys are greybeards... coasting. It doesn't matter, after so many years with postgres & MySQL they are amazing.

I take chill in-the-flow steady progress over hyper rah-rah-rah windmill attacks any day, week, and month.

Agree, with DBA or system administration it's possible. Not so with UI/frontend development, for some reason that's always a rush.

I would probably differentiate by work visibility: good work in DBA/sysadmin/security/accounting/quality is invisible, you only notice those folks when they have screwed up.

With product/UX/new features it's the other way around, coasting is not possible.

> With product/UX/new features it's the other way around, coasting is not possible.

That very much depends on the application. I maintain some enterprise solutions for customers. Clients get upset if UI has flow changes. Also, changes don't make me money unless they are required for a new customer. I will do it on request and invoice for the work but no one is interested in change for the most part. I think this is VERY common in enterprise software.

Grey beard here. The last interview I had with a company was with the CEO (no beard) that could barely stay awake because he had been up all night (think Sam Altman with scurvy). I seriously doubt he remembered anything about me. That one experience let me know that I would not be doing the "coasting" being referred to in this thread. Instead I would be losing sleep repairing the mistakes from bad decisions and lack of experience which would ultimately lead to a dead startup. Thank you no.

There was a time when machismo was my middle name (much younger) and would have seen that as necessary for a successful startup. Now that I have several startups behind me I see it as simply bad management which decreases your chance for success which is stacked against you from the beginning anyway.

That was several years ago. I don't think that startup exist any longer.

I have often wondered if any VCs would allow a group of experienced devs to PE zombie startups, roll them up for pennies to see if any have an unexplored nugget of traction

You'd have to pay the experienced devs in real money.

Its the equity cramdown on the existing teams that would be harder

I meant nothing negative with my "retire into SQL" comment :-) some of the most fun I've had in my career is picking through a 25 year old SQL database understanding how it all works.