This is tragic. The more I stay in this profession, the more experienced people I meet and the more I lose confidence in those people. Especially people who have 15-20 years of industry experience but lacks basic Computer Science knowledge.
It hurts to see such people in important places of an organization.
From the beginning, I believed that IT experience has nothing to with the skill and knowledge of that person.
I used to declined upfront when people said,
MORE EXPERIENCE = MORE SKILLS
Now I’ve experienced it myself.
And don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying every experienced engineer is like that. It is just that when you stay in the industry for some time, you come across a few. And that few can sometimes frustrate you to the very core 😀
Number of experience may look good on your resume but it should never become the metric of knowledge and skills.
In my career, I’ve met a few who have 15-20 years of experience on a resume but lacks basic computer science knowledge. And it makes discussions hard when that person is in the room. Not only that, but other team members also notices the lack of knowledge and skills but hesitates to say it in the face because it might hurt that person.
Nobody wants to hurt someone just because of their lack of knowledge… in the subject… which they say they are experts in… :/
They Say Wrong Stuff… With Confidence
I’ve seen that experience increases the person’s confidence. But if that experience does not match up with the skills, it has the power to ruin a project… or a team.
Such a person thinks that they know everything but in reality its the exact opposite.
And it indirectly hurts the team members and ultimately the project as a whole.
What is the way out?
Leave the f****** project and run, leave the company, leave the country :D. Just Kidding.
If you ever come across such people who have number of experience under their belt but lacks the basics of computer science knowledge, then remember these things,
- It’s for a short period – Usually a project lasts for 3 months to anywhere between 9 months. But if you are someone who experience that days are big and 3 months is a long long time, then talk to your project manager and find another project. And try to be honest (if you organization rewards honesty). It’s better to speak up then to suffer.
- Keep patience – Sometimes it will get really hard to keep up with the nonsense. But I suggest you to take a deep breathe and keep patience. Because if you are going to challenge ideas of this person, you are going to be ignored. And getting ignored is not good. So my advice is to keep patience. This phase will pass.
- Concentrate on your part of the work – At the end of the day, it is you who has to work on the project. You just do the work and get over with it. You don’t want to be the bad guy. So, just concern yourself with what you get and don’t ask more. Just get over with the project as soon as possible.
I think the above steps works.
Tell me your experience so far in the comments below.
Have you came across such people ever? How did you tackled the situation?
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