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I have met people with 5 years experience who are significantly more capable than others with 15 so I don't think time is a good metric. A lot of it is about at

by robjan 3y ago

I have met people with 5 years experience who are significantly more capable than others with 15 so I don't think time is a good metric. A lot of it is about attitude, some of which comes with age, but some is more intrinsic to the person.

dagw 3y ago
I guess it really comes down to why you want a 'senior' and what you want them to be capable of. Are just looking for someone who is really good a coding or do you want someone with lots of experience leading teams and delivering projects from beginning to end. If you primarily want a good programmer then there are lots of people with less than 5 years of experience that are great. If you want someone who has lead teams and shipped products and can help you and your existing team reach new levels and get your next major product out the door, you'll be hard pressed to find that in people with less than 5 years of experience.
glimshe 3y ago
Just because you know exceptions, it doesn't mean that it's a bad metric. Take one of these "people with 5 years of experience" that are great and wait until they have 10 or 15 years of experience. Would you expect them to be a better or a worse engineer then? You need to compare apples to apples, i.e., talented engineers to talented engineers - and in this case, experience often makes a big difference. I understand that, in our field, there is the impression that older engineers don't "keep up with progress", but this stereotype is just a form of ageism. That might be the case of bad engineers, those who were never great to begin with, but a talented engineer with a lot of experience is really hard to beat. These people can make design and architectural decision for million/billion dollar projects that an engineer with 5 years of experience would never be able to make confidently. In a nutshell, you can't take experience alone as a predictor of performance, but there is a strong correlation between experience and proficiency.

by robjan 3y ago

dagw 3y ago

I guess it really comes down to why you want a 'senior' and what you want them to be capable of. Are just looking for someone who is really good a coding or do you want someone with lots of experience leading teams and delivering projects from beginning to end. If you primarily want a good programmer then there are lots of people with less than 5 years of experience that are great. If you want someone who has lead teams and shipped products and can help you and your existing team reach new levels and get your next major product out the door, you'll be hard pressed to find that in people with less than 5 years of experience.

glimshe 3y ago

Just because you know exceptions, it doesn't mean that it's a bad metric. Take one of these "people with 5 years of experience" that are great and wait until they have 10 or 15 years of experience. Would you expect them to be a better or a worse engineer then? You need to compare apples to apples, i.e., talented engineers to talented engineers - and in this case, experience often makes a big difference. I understand that, in our field, there is the impression that older engineers don't "keep up with progress", but this stereotype is just a form of ageism. That might be the case of bad engineers, those who were never great to begin with, but a talented engineer with a lot of experience is really hard to beat. These people can make design and architectural decision for million/billion dollar projects that an engineer with 5 years of experience would never be able to make confidently. In a nutshell, you can't take experience alone as a predictor of performance, but there is a strong correlation between experience and proficiency.