As a senior manager of a development team at a Fortune 10 company that consists of many members who are in their 40's or older one of the things I'm looking at

As a senior manager of a development team at a Fortune 10 company that consists of many members who are in their 40's or older one of the things I'm looking at during the interview process is their ability to logic and reason. That ability alone seems to be so much stronger just due to living the ups and downs. Displaying this, focusing on this, is by far one of those things that makes you stand out. One of the biggest pitfalls of ICs regardless of age (but I see it more as some get older) is the inability to break free from the past. If you cant learn, or refuse to accept, anything new have no use for you. Tech is changing constantly and if you can't tout something you are looking forward to and just constantly looking back on that one project you did and using that same method/tool/tech it really makes it difficult to envision. There are IC roles that are "lead" but not management which our company calls "Principal" consultants - that seems to be the latest term in the industry that everyone is going with to denote someone at a high level of expertise who contributes at somewhat of a manager level but not necessarily of people just of projects but is still more of an IC than a project manager.