[tstrimple]

This has been my experience as well. I've worked with junior devs who understood their domain well and were very productive. I've worked with 20 year enterprise development veterans who are still doing the same basic Java work they have always done at large companies with questionable practices and literally haven't grown as a developer. Experience does matter, but what you've done with that experience is far more important than how long it is in absolute terms.

[pojzon]

Would you rather go to a mechanic that fixed only breaks in one car model for 10 years.

Or to a mechanic that fixed many things in many different cars over 10 years ?

Thats the difference between hoppers and “veteran corpo ppl”.

[AnimalMuppet]

1. That depends on how difficult the problem is. For some problems, you're better off with a specialist.

2. Do you want a whole car designed by someone who designed the hubcaps of a Ford Model, and the driver's side door handle for an Audi, and a dash switch for Toyota, and on through 10 other random parts? Or do you want someone who has been part of a team that designed a whole car before, from start to finish?

[pojzon]

I would want someone who was part of few teams who designed a car.

Average project in IT is built in 2 years. In 8 years you could have built 4-6 different projects.

The dude that stayed in first project to maintain it, probably did not learn anything more.

Thats at least my experience. Old Java devs that stopped learning after java 8.