I am not 40 yet, only turned 36 couple of days ago. However, I am desperate and in need of advice.
I think I made a mistake when I was younger and chose a career path of a database administrator, even though I always enjoyed programming more. Moreover, I still do some programming, mostly for fun: little side projects, some codewars, some codefights, screeps. I really enjoy working with JavaScript and it's infrastructure: git, npm and all that. I also have experience with a lot of other languages, like PHP, python, basic/vb, pascal/delphi, c++ and do lot of shell scripting, PL/SQL programming, SQL and SQL tuning at work.
The problem is, I am 36. I can not switch jobs, because it would mean to get back to junior salaries, which really looks like a super bad option and bad decision + there would probably be more yesterday students, who would be happy to get this junior role.
So what I wanted to ask is what would you do if you were me. Please, do not tell me to kill myself or keep rotting at my current job/position/career path.
Thank'all.
I think your premise is wrong: "I can not switch jobs because it would mean to get back to junior salary". Why do you think that?
Of course, part of the equation is also your location. I don't know where you live, but if you're willing to move, you probably can find a lot of opportunities to sell your senior experience.
It's not really clear what is the advice you're looking for. - Do you like your job? Stick to it and grow in your current role. - Do you like your job but not your company? Change company! - Do you want to switch to another job? Well, you probably won't choose something super different (e.g. a doctor!) but you with your experience you could apply for team leading roles, sofware (or infrastructure) architect, production engineer, developer advocate, partner engineer, etc.
My suggestion is to understand exactly what is your need / problem here, and to give it a name. Then start from there. You're a programmer, think analytically :) And don't think about bad choices (I don't think it was a bad choice, though) you can change what's next but not what you already did (yeah apologies for the philosophical sentence, but that's it)