Comment by Ocerge

I have 13 years of experience and a Senior title, but I'm not sure if that means much. Really I have just worked on web-related problems for the last 10 years (first 2 were LinuxRT USB drivers, which I think more and more fondly of these days) and have hit the same crossroads as OP. The main difference for me I'd say is that I'm actually very serious about moving into management; being an IC these days feels like I am on a never-ending treadmill of boring work. Add AI to the mix and I have never been less motivated than I am now to continue writing code.

So I guess the answer to the question of how I evolved is that I evolved rapidly until my ceiling, which was probably ~6-8 years into my career. I haven't learned much since, nor have I had to. Only now do I feel a stronger urge to look where the puck is going and skate towards it, so to speak.