[kingdomcome50]

I don't agree with the assumption that it takes months and years of practical experience with a framework to be productive within it's codebase. I also don't think the claim was that our candidate would perform at the level of a senior dev.

But to your point. Yes, experience is critical for mastering a skill.

[oblio]

It's not just a framework.

It's a new language. Syntax, semantics, common patterns, high level approaches to things (you could call this culture).

It's a new VM (possibly) or compiler.

It's a myriad of libraries.

It's operational tools around the main tech stack (debugger, tracing/performance tools, deployment tools, logging tools/frameworks, etc).

To truly master a mature software stack takes years. Yes, a smart and experienced dev can hack their way around with the help of an experienced team, but the real test will be when the same dev looks at their own code from the start.

Though even that's not a sure thing, because if it's one thing developers have plenty of, it's hubris. Sometimes it helps, but many times it doesn't.

> I also don't think the claim was that our candidate would perform at the level of a senior dev.

No, the claim was even funnier, that the candidate will be a competent developer because he has a PhD in physics (a field somewhat related to software engineering, if you squint really hard, but not really).

[kingdomcome50]

Many of the concepts listed above overlap significantly between languages/frameworks/etc. Of course there are always idiosyncrasies, but having experience with one approach will significantly reduce friction when learning the next one.

But more importantly, you also don't need to very much about the above if your goal is just to reach competency. My understanding is the OP was claiming the candidate will be competent because "he knows how to program". Now that may mean anything from "candidate has written a python script to display a graph once" to "candidate is the lead dev of our game engine".

If the former, then of course, yes, they would likely struggle a little bit at first (though I would expect competency within hours -- many frameworks, as part of their core design, aim to reduce time-to-competency). If the latter, give them a brief overview of the system architecture, point them at the docs, hand them a ticket, pat them on the back and walk away.