You know what the most likely next career step in tech is for a woman my age?

Leaving.

It just really sits with me. When my friends leave. Which a lot of them have this year. Learning scientists like me study pathways. All opportunity is preconditioned by access. Trajectory comparisons are not full comparisons unless they include leaving.

When we fixate on "getting in" and not fixing what's within, this happens. But every day, the future changes. I'm here for that.

@grimalkina I realized at one point that I was meeting more women "ahead of" me in software engineering at yarncraft conventions than in software contexts. They weren't in the software contexts anymore, because so many of them had left.