What can someone with 30 years experience in software do after retiring
My dad has been working in software since 1990.
He has been working for the government therefore he has worked on an extremely wide variety of software and has traversed the whole hierarchy (he will be retiring as a director of a center).
I was thinking that there will be a lot of companies who will want to hire him as a consultant/advisor because of his experience but I have no idea how to find such jobs/companies. If anyone has any experience with this and is willing to share their thoughts it would be a big help. As a retired software developer with 50 years experience I can say that he's unlikely to get hired.
The software business is very age-biased. And, since you mentioned that he was the "director of a center",
that implies that he "retired into management" rather than actually continuing to develop software. Plus, as a manager there is no time to keep up with the leading edge. In software, especially now, as the Red Queen said:
"Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!" However, retirement is amazing. I spend most of my days on my own projects, which usually involves taking several courses on youtube. For instance, I'm working on a problem that requires a camera so I'm watching
"The Ancient Secrets of Computer Vision" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5WSV6CXsxs&list=PLjMXczUzEY...). Nobody would pay me to learn how to compute the robots grasping pose of a 3D printed object from its GCODE description. Retirement is great fun and the perfect opportunity to spend 18 hours a day, 7 days a week (modulo random naps :-) ) hacking on whatever software that strikes your fancy. Enjoy it while it lasts. I'm nowhere near of 50 years of experience but even with my 15 I can see the trend you describe. I feel natural progression is to move towards management or closer to business. If I am lucky enough to gain 50 years of experience I aim to do software as hobby (same as I was "feeling" it when I was a teenager) and gain business experience including network of contacts so I can do consulting.. Of course, best scenario would be not to have to work at that point but I plan for the worst. Every programmer I know retired into management. They made more, sometimes a lot more, money than I did. I had 8 "opportunities" to do that. I turned them all down. My reasoning is that I don't understand why I would move from a subject I know really well (programming) to one that I don't know at all (management). Plus I know I'm neither good at self-management nor good with people so wisdom seems to dictate remaining a programmer. Note that all of the former programmers all claimed they wanted to either return-to or continue-to program. One of them even had it written into his contract that he could program "in his spare time at work" (who has that?).
Not one of the managers returned to programming later in life. Programming is hard, a lot of self-inflicted pain, and the ultimate source of frustration. Few people want to return to that once they have "escaped". Know thyself. This is kind of an anti-answer, sorry about that. I confess, after 40 years of software development, I was done with the technical world. In the three years I've been retired, I've sailed a lot, done woodworking, made music (guitar, piano, voice, played a lot of chess, exercised, and hung out with my wife and the kid I mentor. If I had more time, I'd improve my Spanish. I have travel plans, too. Does he really need to make more money? Has he no other interests? Just my 2 cents, but if he was working for the government there's a good chance a little more money wouldn't hurt. The natural progression from retiring from a job in the government tends to be taking up a new job with the government or a government contractor. This is one place he could look: A better path might be to network with former colleagues who work in areas he is interested in. Contract pay in government work tends to be higher. Outside of government I would say large corporations. Again networking is going to tend to work better here than applying directly if possible. I mean... is he retiring or just "changing jobs?" If he's retiring, I'd say what he can do includes: Go fishing Take up photography Take up a musical instrument Learn a foreign language Travel Go camping Volunteer for a cause that's near and dear to his heart Read Attend live music performances Go fishing Go to museums Restore an old car (or tractor, or bicycle, or radio, or $WHATEVER) Build a Tesla coil Go fishing etc... Software testing; his experience would enable him to know which specific tests to perform in any/all program areas. figure out what slice of reality your dad is "the" expert on and focus on that audience Videogames? Indie game dev, etc.