Should importance of work experience be reconsidered in leading IT roles?
By: Adrian Trzeciak
Tags: Business, Technology, It Busniess, Computers, Software Development

Technology is evolving faster than ever and so is every IT’s person responsibility to stay relevant. Gartner says global IT spending will reach $3.9 trillion during 2020. While IT solutions are being developed for increased efficiency and relevance, the need for IT resources increases dramatically. New cloud technologies such as Kubernetes, Istio, Anthos, AI, Machine Learning or IoT being set-up in minutes and methodologies like DevOps and CI/CD are rapidly entering our daily life. You can set up your own server (or a serverless endpoint) to play around with from your sofa in a matter of minutes if not seconds.

I still remember my first PC that arrived at our home at Christmas eve 1999 — Celeron powered with 443MHz clock rate that right away got overclocked to at least 466MHz, a useless GPU that was quickly updated to Nvidia Geforce2 MX, 64MB RAM and a Creative Sound Blaster Live! sound card (yes, dedicated sound cards were popular at that time). The possibilities weren’t that many — launching Counter Strike 1.6 took ages and once it loaded, the framerate never exceeded 10 FPS and HDD maxed out at 8GB. Thankfully a lot has changed since then — personal computer has become the main tool at work while every company from retail to rail maintenance increasingly rely on diverse IT solutions.

Still, when you read description of a role that matters, a role that let you impact IT direction of a company, you’re frequently greeted with a requirement of 10+ years of experience. You might hate me for saying it out loud, but value of that 10 years of experience decreases for every day that goes by. What in my opinion is worth more, is the ability to stay relevant in the hectic everyday life especially when entering the next decade. While Moore’s Law might end being achievable already in 2025, it’s no time to take a break.

I would like to encourage larger companies to reconsider the requirements for leading IT roles. People with great enthusiasm and deep understanding of IT should be in those positions — people who quickly become proficient at their daily tasks so they can focus on improving and therefore changing the established truths. While efficient Googling is becoming the most underestimated skill of all time, a skill that is never mentioned in the role’s requirements, also a skill that enables millennials to outperform in those positions without the required years of experience.

Don’t take it wrong — I’m not saying that if you’re not a millennial or a member of gen. Z for that sake, you should quit IT. What I’m saying is that the years of experience might mean less in the next decade while the ability to adapt to change and consume new knowledge receives more attention. What’s so special with IT is the rapid evolution and opportunities that arise. Therefore whether a person is qualified for an IT-role should be increasingly based on interests, preferences, enthusiasm, ability to learn fast and willingness to excel.

Who am I to say that? I’m a nerd, but I’m a nerd who works out every day just to ensure that my body and brain are ready for new challenges that require high energy levels. I enjoy spending my spare time reading, listening to podcasts, experimenting with technologies and taking courses whenever applicable — and I’m not even half-way to the 10 year old experience required.