The concern I always have with people with a lot of experience, and I’m in that category too, is that they’re not going to bring a wealth of refined wisdom as much as quirky opinions from years of subtle misunderstandings and past experiences that are irrelevant in the current context. If they were actually bring value that had been ratchet up, then that would be very valuable, but that’s rare.
You're not wrong - I have to watch myself to be sure I don't fall into that trap. I hope I succeed in bringing forward valuable lessons, but none of us are perfect. In addition, the advice I find myself giving most often to
a variety of people is to stop saying, "This is what we did back when I worked at X". If you cannot abstract it into broader reasons why an action is applicable and helpful to the current situation, then having done it before is simply an anecdote.
> they’re not going to bring a wealth of refined wisdom as much as quirky opinions from years of subtle misunderstandings and past experiences that are irrelevant in the current context
Might be just me, but that sounds like an ego problem more than anything. And it can come from either direction, too:
* It might be that an experienced engineer is looking down on his (it's usually a he) younger peers on grounds that "look kid, I've been around a lot and know better".
* It might also be that the youngsters don't recognize, because of their lack of experience, that these past experiences actually are relevant in the current context.
I guess it's on older developers to get across what is refined wisdom versus what are merely quirky opinions from years of subtle misunderstandings.
For many years, the Smalltalk community tried to get a certain message out to the public, but it didn't get across to the mainstream programming community nearly as successfully as what Chris Granger managed to do with Light Table. I think the lesson there, is that the onus is on the people who have the hard won experience and the valuable contrarian view to explain it to everyone else.
I worry about this. I have a well-developed gut (in all the ways) and it tells me things that I have learned to trust, but I cannot explain to others clearly.
Are my gut instincts still correct, or were they correct in the previous context, and now not so great? How do I develop a heuristic for telling the difference?
How do I develop a heuristic for telling the difference?
Perhaps this is why, "The unexamined life is not worth living?" One needs to constantly re-examine one's experiences with regards to first principles. This way, one can wrest generalized experience and rational decision making up out of the mire of gut instincts. Toyota's "Five Whys" is a good first step for that.
The method I use is to mentally list out everything I know about a topic so as to hold it in my mind at once, then throw it a way and consider everything I have not considered yet. Essentially forcing a new perspective and using the old knowledge as paths I’ve already been down. If they’re still correct I’ll just discover another angle they’re correct I hadn’t considered before or simply realize something new.
My wife makes this observation in Banking. If one goes through 20 years without examining their experiences properly, someone with 2 years might well know way more.
This is why I blog. It's not perfect (a journal would probably be better) but it does let me look across the years of my professional experience and contemplate them.
Sometimes that's very true. The problem is, it's usually some time into their employment before you know which side they fall on.
This reinforces my opinion that companies probably are better off on average by choosing younger (and cheaper) candidates. I'm not the younger/cheaper candidate, so I'm not being biased.
This is just the normal issue that it is hard to find good people. Having lots of experience doesn't change this as there are plenty of idiots out there at every experience level. It is just harder to come up with a FizzBuzz test for this.
I agree actually, but I think there could be more emphasis on how to improve and refine one’s insights too so people get better at it vs leaving it up to chance as they get older.
