Agreed and of course a clear understanding of what the tradeoffs of approaches are. In the end, I think that more than years of experience is the best marker.

Agreed and of course a clear understanding of what the tradeoffs of approaches are. In the end, I think that more than years of experience is the best marker. I have come into codebases written by a few developers for 20 years that made me think "why don't these people ever get any better?" And when the codebase could function as a textbook of how not to program........