[scarface74]

And that’s another line of reasoning I don’t believe.

I have a coworker who is probably 10 years younger than I am but has been working for the company for 7 years to my one, how could I better understand the business of the company than he does?

I worked for one company when I was 35 dealing with the complicated rules of the railroad industry. My manager was 28, but he was the founder of the company before it got acquired, built it from scratch and had 90% penetration in the particular market segment, how could I be more experience at how my code relates to the business - one he studied since he graduated from college?

[rpedela]

You can always find examples that counter the generalization but don't necessarily make the generalization false. In general, a 40 year old is going to be better than a 25 year old in understanding how software is applicable to business simply because they have more experience. They have been in more business meetings and seen how their software applies. Does that mean a 25 year old can't be better than a 40 year old at that? Of course not.

[scarface74]

It's not just one random counterexample. Knowing how code relates to a business has a lot more to do with how long you have been in that particular business or vertical than your general experience.

That 25 year old who was at the company since they started 3 years ago is going to know a lot more than that 40 year old who just came in yesterday.

Besides that, I did say 10+ years. The whole point is diminishing returns from experience.

[AnimalMuppet]

There's more to this than understanding the business.

With 20 years of experience, I didn't write the bugs I did 10 years earlier. I produced better architectures. I produced more readable code. I could tackle more complex problems. I could help my coworkers more.

[Nursie]

> I have a coworker who is probably 10 years younger than I am but has been working for the company for 7 years to my one, how could I better understand the business of the company than he does?

You probably don't understand the specific business domain better. That's not the claim. But you may better/faster understand the clients you have and how to meet their needs, how to interpret their requirements, spot the gaps in what they're asking for, etc

[scarface74]

My next resume

Summary

- Expert at solving XYProblems

[edmundsauto]

One explanation could be that having more experience in a wide variety of fields brings perspective that someone steeped deeply in the business, but with very little external breadth, has.

Not that I necessarily think that's true. Personally, I have yet to be convinced that it's possible to systematically measure developer productivity, making all of these comparisons pretty worthless except as "dorm room at 2am" type conversations.