I started reading
Outliers yesterday and in chapter 2 Gladwell posits that 10,000 hours of experience is the magic number to achieve mastery in a field. He uses the backgrounds of orchestral virtuosos, the Beatles, Bill Joy, and Bill Gates as examples and that got me thinking about experience in our field. When I was looking for a job earlier this year, I recall several higher-level positions asking for 5-7 years of experience.
40 hrs/week
x 50 weeks/year (assuming 2 weeks of vacation)
x 5 years
= 10,000 hours
However, I will argue that there is a difference between 5 years of experience vs 1 year of experience 5 times. By this I mean that someone who job hops frequently or changes roles doesn't have the same relative level of experience as someone who stays in the same role or supports the same product for 5 years. As an example, look at the hours
Turgon has spent studying for CCIE - almost 1000 hours - in addition to actual work experience. The
Microsoft Certified Master: Exchange Server 2007 program requires 5 or more years of experience with Exchange in order to be accepted into the program. In fact, the only Master rotations that require less than 5 years experience are SharePoint and OCS, and I assume that is becasue they haven't been available for 5 years.
Does it really take 5 years (or 10,000 hours) to achieve mastery in our field? What do you think?
