After leaving Activision, Carol Shaw worked at Tandem Computers, focusing on business applications software. This move represented a shift away from game development and towards more traditional software engineering.

Carol Shaw married Ralph Merkle, a noted computer scientist and researcher in nanotechnology and cryonics. This marked an important milestone in her personal life.

Carol Shaw retired from the tech industry in the early 1990s to focus on other interests and personal pursuits.

In her retirement, Carol Shaw pursued various interests, including volunteer work, genealogy, and other personal hobbies.

Carol Shaw has received increasing recognition for her pioneering role in the video game industry. Her contributions have been celebrated through awards, interviews, and historical analyses of the early video game era. She is remembered as one of the first influential female game designers and a key figure in the history of video games.