When an opportunity for a new project in my company presented itself, I volunteered with a little bit of skepticism but a lot of excitement. I have been working with this company for 5 years on a different project in which I was a team lead for several releases. I have a consistent track record of delivering good quality projects.

The new project has a team that is built from ground up and the management decided to hire new developers. The technologies used are the latest ones that are different from the previous project I had worked on (although they both are in .NET). The newer and the younger developers in the team have more experience with the latest technologies from their previous gigs.

The younger developers have a lot more energy, can work 14 hours a day (they remind me of my early 20s) and live on ramen noodles. Since they are new, I feel they are obligated to show what they are made of and to prove their mettle. I feel like I am sidelined in this project and the management obviously like the younger developers as they bring more to the table. I know ageism is rampant in our field and the more I think about this, the more it makes me feel that there are very few transferable skills from one project to the other and one day you could be a team lead managing a number of developers, the next day some one you hired becomes your boss.

Do you see yourself in situations like this very often? What plans do you have to make yourself valuable in a long term perspective?