I work in managed content. I develop AMS and CMS and intranet portals for companies that do web publishing. My specialties are workflows and middleware connectors (for fulfillment, payment processing, LDAP, etc.). I used to be a bare metal frontend Javascript wizard, in the days when people used terms like DHTML and then AJAX.

I've been doing this for the better part of twenty years, so the writing is on the wall for me. It will soon be cheaper to hire 2-3 recent CS grads, with their lack of personal responsibilities, ability to work long nights, and affinity for the latest fad technologies (of which I am increasingly wary), than it is to hire me.

But I am not spectacularly skilled, merely competent. My primary usefulness is in feature solicitation and requirements gathering, as I have the weight of experience when it comes to determining what should be focused on, and I know what works and what doesn't, from years of working on various iterations of sites in different business domains.

As I said, the writing is on the wall. I have no desire to manage anyone. I paid my dues and went freelance, just before things got unfavorable, with respect to U.S. health and professional insurance. I don't really have an entrepreneurial spirit except in as much as I would like to work on important (not the same as "hard") problems with amenable people. I am no longer able to just find a client or employer where the people are smarter, because I am nearly a graybeard. I have sowed my wild oats, and my "I am the CEO / principal consultant / technical founder" days are about a decade behind me.

I don't know what to do next. I just don't think I have more than another 7-10 years doing what I do. The President is essentially calling my domestic clients Lügenpresse. No one seems to care about words printed on paper or eInk, or anything on a screen that is longer than this post. The need for complicated features such as a wiki or extensive document management and versioning are going away, as the clientele become more technical and barely need anything beyond a git repo and markdown at the highest level. I feel myself becoming obsolete, and I am ready for the next thing.