Read this article, it talks about the different phases of a professional career.
I see so many interesting comments and details on the article: 3 phases of a career, how to balance it with your live, comments about how to move from one place to other.
It’s really a nice and clear analysis.
The only thing I can add is, that if you are changing from one company to other, you should try to do the last big jump when you are around 42-45 years old. This was a suggestion commented to me by an HR person doing recruitment for her company.