[☁️ Reflections] Where are the role models?
Originally written on February 4, 2020
I work in product management in the software industry. Living in San Francisco, most people do. What’s surprising is how young the workforce (and this city) is. The average age at Facebook was 28 in 2017 according to Business Insider. At Google: 30, at Amazon: 31, Microsoft: 33, etc. I can go on and on but you get what I mean. Everyone either joined a company right out of college that experienced sky rocket growth or actually started that company. Imagine that. 8-10 years out of college and a whole generation has accumulated enough wealth to stop working.
The average age being mid-30s means that there has to be certain number of CEOs and leadership teams in that age range (e.g. Zuckerberg). However where is the older generation represented in these companies?
I’ve been working since I graduated from college six years ago. I will not be retiring comfortably anytime soon and envision working for at least 30 more years. As I’ve been thinking of my own professional development in product management and whether I want to have a leadership role in the future in 10-20 years, I’ve been looking for role models in the industry who are 20 years ahead of me.
There are a few female product leaders my age or a couple years older. It’s good to see some achieve success at a young age. But I haven’t found a healthy amount of women in product leadership roles in an older age range. It makes me wonder whatever happened to other women in the industry and whether product management is a sustainable career. For example, where are the women who started their careers 20 years ago in product management? Were there fewer women who joined product management 20 years ago? Did some women join and then slowly leave the sector until there were less in product leadership roles? I’m trying to imagine my future way down the road and I realized… role models are few and far between.