This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Kevin Naidoo
I started my career in the whole .net ecosystem, which was a pleasant experience overall but passion drove me deep into the open-source world (although .net is open source now 
).
You can get very far with Python, PHP, TypeScript, and so forth, no doubt, and have a long-lasting career, however, tech is unstable in the higher salary brackets as you gain more experience.
If you have an entrepreneur mindset; get into SaaS early, this is the best way to build up multiple income streams and long-term job security. I did a comprehensive article here on the subject.
The first 5 years in the industry
In your first 5 years you going to work on mostly CRUD-type or API applications, usually at startups, or maybe you’ll get into one of the big tech giants.
Depending on the company, the world is your oyster, fiddle with Laravel or Next.js or whatever you like. Doesn’t really matter so long as you are learning how to build.
The next 5 years
This is when you become a senior or on the pathway to becoming a senior, now you need to reach mastery and maybe even mentor junior developers.
This is where you buckle down on the stack you chose earlier and learn anything and everything you can about the tech.
Meanwhile, your salary should be growing to a senior tier.
10+ years on
At this point, you’ve built APIs, and CRUD apps, you’ve encountered most problems, and know how to solve just about any problem that comes your way.
Furthermore, you’ve changed jobs a few times, so you also understand different environments and tech stacks.
The problem phase
You are experienced enough to work in most roles, but in the same vein are too expensive for most roles. You probably can push senior for another 5-10 years, but at some point, you need to move out of dev.
The difference between 10 years and 15 years of experience, is not that much in terms of skill set but in terms of salary, there probably is a big enough difference. The same logic applies to the 5-year experienced dev vs the 10-year dev, although this totally depends on the nature of the work.
You are also more susceptible to being laid off; besides understanding much more complex architectures, your only edge as a senior is speed, sometimes an extra day or two to roll out a feature is not the end of the world and companies are more than happy to just onboard lesser experienced devs at a lower cost.
This doesn’t always work, since some environments need the expertise you have, thus having a broad skill set and deep technical knowledge will always position you in a good space.
Startups are a rocky boat
If you got into one of those tech giants, started a SaaS/company or a big bank, etc… you probably can sail through this journey into retirement.
For those working in the startup world, when the economy crashes or slows down (which happens every 10 years or so) or the latest tech bubble bursts (#AI), you are often at risk of being laid off and startups don’t tend to offer comprehensive retrenchment packages.
C# is stable
If you get to a senior level in C#, you probably can survive most storms. Since this stack is mostly used at large enterprise companies whose revenue is not based on some SaaS product, but rather large industries like finance, banking, mining, engineering, etc…
Furthermore, there are a lot more certification paths and adjacent roles like developer advocates, consultants, and other management-type roles you can smoothly transition into when you get older.
Finally, in an enterprise your salary is like a drop in the ocean compared to senior executives, so as long as you work hard and do your job efficiently, you can quite comfortably get that yearly raise and continue on till your late 50s and into retirement.
In the startup world, the senior dev, CTO or architect is mostly likely the highest paid thus in slow economic growth phases, you are easily the first they’ll cut.
Sure, enterprises do cut jobs too but usually this is a slow process and you get solid lay-off packages to keep you going for 3-6 months while you find a new job.
Anyone can learn Django, Laravel, or Next.js in a few months, but mastering the C# ecosystem takes years, and understanding the complexities of large enterprise systems like banking systems can take a long time, thus it’s hard to replace these developers.
C# is not a silver bullet
While C# will give you a better edge on job security, those who sleep at the wheel are in trouble anyway.
You must keep learning, and evolving your skill set, this is essential to survive long-term in the tech industry.
You don’t need to jump onto every new trend that appears (#NFTs, #Web3), just keep your ear to the ground and observe new technologies over 6-12 months.
Usually, if a new trend is going to stick around for the long term, big companies like Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and so forth are going to jump on the bandwagon and this is usually an indicator that this tech is going to be important.
The great thing about the C# world is things more a lot slower in the enterprise, thus this gives you plenty of time to adapt your skill set.
Conclusion
This is based on the average developer and doesn’t apply to everyone as a blanket statement, off-course there are plenty of developers in the open-source world working late into their 60s and 70s as developers, and many who smoothly transition into management and other senior roles just fine.
However, the reality is that a senior skilled C# developer, more than often should have better job security than say a Python/PHP developer.
This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Kevin Naidoo