How many years of experience should you require from a software developer?
The short answer? It depends. I will outline some key aspects to keep in mind when deciding.
First aspect is to look at short term vs long term needs. A rule of thumb is that after 1/2 year of working in a new position abilities outperform previous experience. So if you choose the one who knows the actual skills best over the one which is most suitable for your position, the one with the skills will give you more the first half year and less after the first half year than the other one. So if you have the luxury of thinking long term and building a great organization for the future it is not important how much experience they bring in.
But the 1/2 year rule of thumb is a huge simplification. If you dig deeper you see that for some sort of tasks experience increases performance over time, whereas for some others it doesn't. If the tasks are repetitive, experience leads to improved performance. As an example, if the position is primarily implementing ERP systems in large companies most people will get better over time. They may streamline a personal process and find improvements over time. However if you need someone to solve a new problem noone has solved before, experience turns out to be unimportant. That's why many of the frontrunners in Silicon Valley don't value experience much anymore and rather look at the persons approach to problem solving.
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Another aspect to keep in mind is that some who have worked for 2 years have gathered a lot of skills whereas others haven't. There are also a lot of developers who have gained a lot of skills outside of their professional life.
So bottom line, this question is very complex and it depends. But the more time you spend on analyzing the actual situation the more likely you are to be right. Happy to expand more in detail with anyone interested.
QA Test Manager/Automation
1 年Noob or experienced. Solving issues depends on personality and attitude. Experience will help alot to be effective, but non-experienced will think differently and find new way
Global artist, researcher & designer, EIT Expert Culture Reviewer, poet/performer. Imaginary and real, everything matters. Intelligence is versatile, not programmable.
1 年I always enjoy reading how people think. Not one person can usually answer since it is an open conversation. Appreciate your way here!
F?rsteamanuensis, forsker, forfatter og foredragsholder om ansettelser, f?rstegangsledelse, lederskifter, og l?ring.
1 年Five year of experience: Does it imply accumulating new learning over five years time, or one year of experience five times over?
Founder/CEO @ AGAIN X | Systemic sustainability leader
1 年A very good example of a #marketing article that #doesn’t #answer the question or brings anything new to the table (as expected from the title) But the title functions perfectly as a #clickbait???? But the problem is real and specially in a hyped market, it is difficult to balance the experience -knowledge-attitude and costs. In my experience #attitude is the most important, as knowledge is gainable and xperience is built upon, handson , specially if is it bespoke for you company. But the smartest and the most experienced with an awful attitude could jeopardize the entire product development and be toxic for the rest of the team.