Depends on your relationship with them. I think it's normal and professional to have a conversation along the lines of "I'd like to start getting experience ma

Depends on your relationship with them. I think it's normal and professional to have a conversation along the lines of "I'd like to start getting experience managing people, do you think there'd be a chance for me to do that?". If they're threatened by that conversation, I wouldn't want to work for them frankly. The reality is there's a lot of older coders out there, I think it matters more what you _want_ to do.