"Lifetime careers no longer exist. I knew a bunch of people that were charging $200 per hour to do HTML in the early 90’s. Frontpage ate their lunch." Still sounds like a lifetime career to me. The "one trick pony" will always evolve with the requirements of the time. Though your observations are limited to tech, if a programmer succeeded in something like farming or health science that would make a great career change. So yes lifetime careers do exist. Its only the requirements/tools that evolve overtime.