- the first woman was called a "mom" and basically drummed out of the industry to academia. That seems like sexism is the more pernicious aspect
- especially when you consider the next example is a guy who was discriminated against at one big name company, but also found a role
- then we get into IBM lifers having trouble moving into new roles after IBM downsized. The downsizing at IBM was inherently ageist, but their subsequent struggles in the job market could have a lot of contributing factors - a whole career at a single company doesn't set you up for success in interviewing, at the very least.
- finally we have the "how will my career develop" issue, which isn't ageism? Outside of management, higher-level IC roles inherently have "squishy" aspects - you're making hard, long-term investments and the payoff takes years in some cases. You can't administer a test to say "this person is a principal engineer and this one is a staff engineer", and complaining that the categories are arbitrary is kind of silly - they're created arbitrarily so you can feel like you're advancing even though the substance of your work is largely the same because you chose to keep doing IC stuff