I've been thinking lately about how much I absolutely love to code, like just taking a task and building something cool. And I've also been thinking about my future with development, I'm a Senior Engineer now and I've been coding for 8 years, also taking responsibilities to design, team lead & architect at times. I worry that as I progress the only path is to move more and more into management responsibilities/roles or move into product.

As a web engineer I feel too specialised to move into a full architect role which seems to be the only technical option for career progression. But I also have the worry that I'll get "too old" and not be hireable because all the new kids will know React v239 better than me 🙄

Am I the only who worries about this? Is there career progression where you get to just stay coding/building cool shit most of the time or can you age out of dev?