5 Years of development experience or Just 1 year of experience repeated 5 times?

Once a upon a time there was a person who applied for a position of software architect. He got the job interview call. During interview he was asked how many years of experience do you have in software industry? Applicant replied, slightly more than 5 years. Interviewer said “But your resume shows that you have 1 year of experience which you have repeated 5 times in 5 years. I am really sorry but we are looking for a person having 5 or more years of experience.”

So how come interviewer concluded that he had only 1 year of experience?

Because, many of us just think that if we are developing software since so many years, it means we got that many years’ experience. Reality, is not like this, actually we just followed the path where our luck has took us. We never exploited our full potential. Following is the time line of a typical software engineer, you decide yourself whether he has 5 years of experience or not:

Year 1:
Passed out from school. Started the first available job in a software house. participated in different data oriented projects like Inventory systems, small portals, websites etc. Worked hard. Learnt a lot. Projects implemented for several clients and overall response from clients was satisfactory.

Year 2:
Continued job in same software house. Supported projects developed in Year 1. Still learning but not much.

Year 3:
Feeling confident since 2 years have passed and still on the job :):) Software house is getting money from the projects developed in year 1 so customisation of the already developed projects is better than creating from scratch in new technology. Customized the old projects and by hook or by crook made them useful for new clients. “Business needs money, not the new technology” his manager told him.

Year 4:
Now he knows the projects in and out and can hack the code for any client need. Since Software House is getting a good revenue by supporting the projects originally developed in Year 1 , It is best for the business to keep them running as it is and create some more reports to keep the client happy. He is a Senior Developer now, to justify his “experience and knowledge”

Year 5:
He is getting a good salary, his company is happy with him. He thinks there is no need for him to learn new technologies because client never asked for it. He continued in this way.

Year 6:
Now, he is bored with his job and wants to move on. He prepared his resume, applied for the jobs and successfully got an interview call for a Software Architect position. Here he met the interviewer and interviewe asked

How many years of software industry experience do you have?

So, what do you think how many years of experience does he has?

Don’t you think many of us feel the same about our software industry experience?

Comments are very welcome!