You must decide if you want your career path to be a manager or a technologist. In most cases, there is valid career growth in either path but they are different paths because there are fundamentally different skill sets and inclinations involved. It is important to take a brutally honest introspective look at yourself to determine what you enjoy about your career and what motivates you.
Then, if you still really want to change to the managerial path, you must again be brutally honest with yourself as you try to figure out why that has not yet been an option. Usually a technologist starts to get opportunities to make this choice at between 5 and 10 YOE. It might be that you unintentionally are signaling to your management that your preference is to be a technologist either because of personality characteristics (your objection to being managed by those younger than you is a potential problem area) or obviously deep focus on technology. Figure out what is blocking you and fix it.
I understand where you are coming from with regard to being managed by those younger than you but take it from a technologist with over 30 years of experience, being a manager is not a function of seniority but of talent. As I mentioned before, management involves a different set of skills. You must evaluate managers for their talent at the activity and remove your bias based on their age. You may find that working for a young manager sometimes gives you the opportunity to lead and mentor them and help them become a better manager.
As others have mentioned, if you really want to move to the management path, you must communicate to others that is what you want. You do this explicitly by telling them and you do this implicitly by demonstrating interest and focusing on your behaviors.
Finally, I’ve noticed that it is very common for people to think that a natural and expected career progression goes from low-level worker to worker to leader to manager to director, VP and CEO. In technology, this is not the only case. Senior technologists are valuable stores of information and capability and there is a valid career progression for them which goes: low-level worker to worker to leader to senior and principal technologist to fellow to CTO. You still get leadership responsibilities but you don’t have the administrative responsibilities. It is important to note that your authority, in this circumstance, comes from a reputation for being knowledgeable and smart (influence), not from position.
Then, if you still really want to change to the managerial path, you must again be brutally honest with yourself as you try to figure out why that has not yet been an option. Usually a technologist starts to get opportunities to make this choice at between 5 and 10 YOE. It might be that you unintentionally are signaling to your management that your preference is to be a technologist either because of personality characteristics (your objection to being managed by those younger than you is a potential problem area) or obviously deep focus on technology. Figure out what is blocking you and fix it.
I understand where you are coming from with regard to being managed by those younger than you but take it from a technologist with over 30 years of experience, being a manager is not a function of seniority but of talent. As I mentioned before, management involves a different set of skills. You must evaluate managers for their talent at the activity and remove your bias based on their age. You may find that working for a young manager sometimes gives you the opportunity to lead and mentor them and help them become a better manager.
As others have mentioned, if you really want to move to the management path, you must communicate to others that is what you want. You do this explicitly by telling them and you do this implicitly by demonstrating interest and focusing on your behaviors.
Finally, I’ve noticed that it is very common for people to think that a natural and expected career progression goes from low-level worker to worker to leader to manager to director, VP and CEO. In technology, this is not the only case. Senior technologists are valuable stores of information and capability and there is a valid career progression for them which goes: low-level worker to worker to leader to senior and principal technologist to fellow to CTO. You still get leadership responsibilities but you don’t have the administrative responsibilities. It is important to note that your authority, in this circumstance, comes from a reputation for being knowledgeable and smart (influence), not from position.