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by codingdave 826 days ago
It is not about either - it is about attitude and cost. If someone with 30 years experience demands a higher salary for the same skill level as someone with 10 years experience, and also bring in an attitude of being a know-it-all because of those extra years... they won't get hired.

There is also the old cliché that there is a difference between 10 years of experience and one year of experience repeated 10 times. If you are a coder who has repeated the same couple years of experience 10-15 times, then you might be over-estimating your own value.

So as you get older, it takes some humility to truly look at yourself and determine your own value. This is why I moved away from coding and towards product management - I'm a decent coder and people appreciate having me on the team, but my value lies in the lessons learned over the years outside of coding. So I seek roles where I can use that experience, and not the decades of coding experience on mostly dead tech stacks.

2 comments

We act like 10 years of 1 or 2 years experience is the same as someone with one or two experience. Someone who has worked at that many places brings experience of different ways to do things. They also get up to speed quicker than someone with 10 years at one place.

Same company will fire someone after 3/4 years because they haven't moved up.

I'm plenty humble. I also realize people with 5 years experience are about the same skill as me at 10 years. I also know my prospects are not good.