I Am A 50-Year-Old Software Professional. While I Lack Certain Skills To Rise Up Further In Corporate Ladder, I Am Good At What I Do. With Growing Age, I Feel Insecure About My Position. How

After turning 50, lots of people are likely to find themselves struggling for job security and respect. They might have worked hard to get where they are. But, in all probability, they might have put their career in auto-pilot. But in reality, you can never, ever stop learning and growing in your career. Job security is about building up an expertise that is in-demand. It's up to us to follow the emerging trends in our field and scale up our skills. If you can recognize and accept what went wrong, you can make changes and get back in the game. One of the famous phrases by Henry Ford says, "If you think you can or you can't - you're right!" It's up to you to make the effort to adjust your perceptions and close your gap in competencies to get back on track.

Every professional must continuously strive to stay relevant to the business that they're a part of. The fact that you're already thinking on those lines is an indication that you have less to worry about than the average employee. The additional benefit of being a part of the technology team is that one's relevance or potential to contribute is agnostic of ones' age. Learn new relevant technologies that are likely to add value to your organization. As a project manager, introduce new project management tools that add value whether in terms of more productivity for the team or greater visibility on project progress. Contribute and learn from community platforms to stay on top of developments in the work of tech. That should ensure that you keep adding value in your current role. Also, communicate and engage with your manager and try to chart out a growth map, and have an honest conversation on how you can add more value to the organization.

You could consider the following options: - continue to do your best where you are and ace results by making yourself indispensable. So that when your so-called ‘retirement time’ comes up, you are eligible for and can ask them to consider making you a consultant on a monthly retainership fee. - you could build up a plan for entrepreneurship while you work here so that as soon as you step down, you launch yourself into the new venture and make it count.