i'm 44.
i have been looking around at my org and at adjacent orgs and i cannot find women over 50 in IC tech roles. i know maybe five women in their 50s in eng-adjacent roles total, and only one of them is an IC, and she is at a company she co-founded.
the men over 50 are everywhere. principal engineers. senior staff. distinguished. consultants. board members.
where do the women go.
i have asked. i have asked at conferences and in slack channels and over coffee. the answers i get are: "she went into consulting." "she's doing a fellowship." "she went to academia." "she retired." "she pivoted to coaching."
retired at 53? what does that mean. i do not have $X to retire at 53. the women who say they "retired" are not retired in any sense my husband would understand the word.
what they actually did, as far as i can piece together from the pieces, is: realized that the cost of staying was too high, did not have the energy to keep proving themselves, did not have peers to pull them through another decade, watched the offers stop coming, watched the "young high-potential" lists not include them anymore, decided their hourly rate was higher elsewhere, and quietly left.
i am 44. i can do six more years in this. then what. i do not know yet.
posting because if you are a woman over 50 still in IC tech, please comment. i want to know you exist. i want to know the texture of how you stayed. i want to know if there is a road i am not seeing.