Is it normal to afraid about your old age survival, if you have started your career as a software developer? 😅 Or do you have any plans for it?

Yes. Women generally get run out at 40 if they don't jump to management.

I started my own firm so I could keep engineering.

I plan to be filthy rich by then, so whatever. @SortOfTested

@SortOfTested What seriously? I think there is a general push to keep the oldies out of the development team regardless of gender. It never makes sense to me because a long career generally means same code or easy to hop in to misc projects. Have you seen that happen with other women too?

@irene
Yes. I wouldn't make the statement if I hadn't. I will say, where I'm at, 40 isn't exactly "oldie"; you still have 25 years until you can consider retiring.

The industry in general pushes women to project management because of a perceived temperament compatibility, coupled with a socially conditioned understanding of personality traits the are associated with "nurture," rather than "leadership." Unfortunately, changing behaviors doesn't really solve the problem, because those behaviors have been conditioned to be seen as odd or socially unacceptable for women.

tl;dr Because most leaders have been men, male is the defacto view of leadership.

There's an obscenely deep body of work that has been done (and ignored) on this subject by those whose privilege it intrudes upon:
https://hbr.org/2019/03/...
https://hbr.org/2013/08/...

@SortOfTested don’t read that wrong. I’m not saying 40 is old. I have noticed that as soon as a dev breaks 40 (or looks like they have) the upper management treats them as “too old to innovate.” Just a bunch of oldies. I have seen devs get pushed into architect, project management, scrum master, or analyst when they are still a very good dev that is happy in their role.

I honestly don’t see many female devs but I have definitely seen something similar with men. That is why I was wondering if it was really a gendered thing.

You were describing a push to management positions. Management positions (if the manager is decent) are leadership roles. You encourage every member to grow into their best selves and solidify their strengths on the team. That is what leadership is. All the way up.