[Wintamute]

Yeah totally agree. I've got about 8 years under my belt (first proper coding job in '04 and I'm 32 now, notwithstanding a lifetime tinkering with computers though). Still loving it and learning new things every day, hope it stays that way :) I guess the point I was trying to make is the metric people expect to hear, especially in a work environment is years of experience in the Industry (capital "I") getting paid. I don't dispute that you have a internal metric too, which is awesome. I guess you have to compare like with like though.

[mkramlich]

I've concluded that the "years of work in [industry|<tech>]" meme is a fuzzy, noisy, unreliable and (close to) meaningless metric. Note I said "(close to) meaningless", because it is not completely. It makes the classic error of making an apples-to-oranges comparison. For example, too many people talk about "5 years of Java" as if they were talking about a 5 meter long pole. If pole lengths were measured in the same way as "years of Java", and you went to buy 10 different poles from different stores, each "5 years of Java" in length, you are going to be in for a nasty surprise. Humans are not commodities like a pole, brick or gallon of water can be.