Being in the over-forty crowd at a tech company certainly has its downsides. But what if being the oldest person on your team actually has some pretty decent perks as well?
For almost two years now, I’ve participated in a monthly meetup called San Francisco Mature Women in Tech. At the meetings, people share information and experiences, and just simply cheer each other on. Sometimes there’s a speaker, sometimes a member leads an exercise, and sometimes we problem-solve. At the January gathering on Zoom, one of the group’s founders announced we were going to do some brainstorming by putting virtual sticky notes on a virtual whiteboard: “Ready? The first question is, What’s great about being a mature woman in tech?” she said.
I shrugged. It felt like purposeful misdirection from the real question: “What’s not-so-great about being a mature woman in tech?” Because that’s where the conversation usually went.
My shrug was misguided, it turns out. After we reviewed the answers to what’s great, I had to admit it—these things were pretty cool. If you’re over 40 in tech or other types of companies, these benefits may resonate with you:
This is a drama-free zone.
You’ve seen it all before, so you know what matters, what to pay attention to, and what to ignore. You no longer care about unimportant things. In fact, fellow employees know this and don’t even bother you with the petty.
Wide experience has some cool benefits.
You now have a BS detector and can call it for what it is. You can also find the right tool quickly or know how to solve a problem expeditiously. Your soft skills mean you can collaborate more efficiently. You even know the simple things, like when to have a real conversation instead of a chat thread.
Problem-solving is no big deal.
Problems are downscaled to “interesting challenges” because you have perspective. You know what works and what doesn’t. And if you’ve been at the company a while, you have the benefit of institutional knowledge that younger employees don’t.
It’s a privilege to empower younger team-members.
You’ve earned the role of mentor and manager and have acquired the skills and emotional intelligence to effectively help others. You can spot the potential around you and are in a position to lift others up.
You finally get to focus on yourself.
This one tends to be a bigger issue for women. If you have kids, they’re older and you have more freedom. You’re not pulled in as many different directions. You’re free to focus on work when you want to.
This is who I am. Deal with it.
You embrace what makes you different rather than trying to hide it. At the same time, you’re constantly reinventing yourself like an operating system update. You laugh a lot because you don’t take everything so seriously. You’re more patient (usually!). You know your limits.
Of course, the meetup group did eventually move on to what’s not-so-great about being older in tech. But I was glad that negativity didn’t dominate the night. The exercise was a reminder that looking at the bright side isn’t an annoying substitute for reality. It’s a useful way to regain perspective.