Whether they go back to school or not, they're likely going to have to accept a much lower salary. They're a senior in their field, but if that doesn't translate well to the new field they really are a junior again, and should expect to be compensated accordingly. It's a tough pill to swallow and something a lot of people in tech (especially B2B) have faced. You either have to come to grips with a lifestyle change or stay in the field and find fulfillment outside of work.
Fair enough, I think it's important people are realistic. Perhaps one could find an adjacent field that's heavily software related and try to sell their pivot that way. I believe he has Machine learning experience, which seems to relate to an increasing number of physical hardware fields these days.
