What comes first: Skills or Experience?

It's a prevailing chicken vs egg question: does proven experience trump qualifications, or vice versa? Usually it is a combination both, but perhaps the real question should be, what do YOU put first?

In the IT industry there is tendency to accumulate certifications from vendors and interest groups to assert knowledge of a product or platform, however the qualification does not guarantee any practical application of those skills. This is particularly evident with public Cloud platforms, where you can become an expert on paper without applying any critical thinking or judgement of how to apply these skills in real-world scenarios (beyond case studies outlined in the exams).

Real world problems are sometimes messy, and cannot be solved with pre-existing patterns; or perhaps more accurately require a combination of patterns and approaches to achieve acceptable outcomes. The ability to evaluate problems, and develop tactical and strategic solutions is something born of experience (and failure), and almost always the path to a good solution is non-linear.

What do you lead with?

In my experience I have found there are two types of people working in IT (and perhaps in general): those that focus on solving problems, and those focused on career progression. Certainly the two don't need to be mutually exclusive, but it makes a big difference which is your primary focus. If you put your career first, you are likely to accumulate credentials and climb the corporate ladder to secure a well-funded retirement. But your impact will be incidental, sometimes successful by association, but certainly not driven by excellence.

If however, you are passionate about finding the best solutions, and evolving them over time, you will have career success AND make a difference. The best solutions do not go unnoticed, sometimes it just takes courage to step off the corporate ladder to focus on what really matters in your working life.