Diminishing Returns in Software Development Experience

For developers working on a similar stack, an engineer with 5 years of experience is closer to an engineer with 20 years of experience than an engineer with 1 year of experience is to one with 5 years.

The Assumptions: To smoothen the model of course

1. RESTful Design (When It Makes Sense)

If both engineers work on projects of similar complexity, using similar technologies, this becomes quite true. There is less to improve on at the top end. Your rate of improvement begins to increase at a diminishing rate at some point.

The gap in technical competency begins to shrink. Senior developers might understand domains and business processes better, but technical competency? Not as much as you think. I've mentored developers whose skills have become completely unrecognizable in a year. Heck, in some pull requests, you begin to objectively see that they are becoming better than you at some things.

This is why I hate it when developers with more experience use that as an argument to make their point instead of objectively tackling problems and listening to input or feedback from those with less experience. It becomes difficult for the newer devs to tell you when you are wrong respectfully. I mean, how do you tell your "proud" superior that they are objectively wrong?

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*Senior engineers should stop be obnoxious just because they have spent more hours in front of a computer.*