Experience Diversity In Software Engineering
Nowadays, the modern world is accepting and fully utilizes the advantages of diversity. Gender diversity, race diversity, ideology diversity — all these things can be beneficial for the project. I want to discover and explain the experience diversity in this article.
Why It Matters
Modern software development uses many technologies, each with its pros and cons, and it is not always clear which is which. So, the first reason why it is good to have developers with different experiences is to share that experience and general best practices with the team.
The consequent advantage of experience diversity is to understand the complete picture of available technologies. Team members may explain why they choose this or that technology, the main criteria, and how the technology suits their needs. Knowing this historical context, the team can select the right technologies for the current project and build it based on existing requirements.
Experience diversity is beneficial to cover as many concepts, aspects, and technologies as possible. Such coverage gives examples of an existing implementation, a better understanding of the market's current situation, and potential pros and cons if the appropriate concept or technology is used.
How To Utilize It
First, the team has to understand the experience of every team member. The easiest way to get it is to check CV on a portal like Linkedin or ask the HR department for this information.
The next logical step is actually to share the experience inside the team. It can be seminars, mini-conferences, or just Friday talks after everybody finishes work. It is important to remember to share information directly related to the project and experience from other projects to have a complete picture of modern technologies.
Alternative ways to get such knowledge are reading books that describe new technologies and seeing how they are used in real life. Team members may also visit conferences or even participate as speakers if they have enough experience.
Finally, the team should use acquired knowledge during the implementation of the project. It can build or adapt the architecture, change the workflows, adapt coding and review best practices, and so on.
The Next Step
The following logical step in maintaining experience diversity is to start sharing the experience all over the world. Conferences are perfect places to start. Another way to do it is to become an evangelist of some technology or a product.
Another way to achieve the same goal is to go open source. When the team shares the results of their work with the community, developers worldwide may help with testing, finding security and functional issues, and even help with financing.
One more alternative is to invest in perspective startups or projects to maintain the development of new technologies and paradigms. This approach requires some financial resources, but it also has the most substantial consequences, as new technologies often lead to scientific breakthroughs.
The final thought — you should not reject technologies and approaches you do not need immediately. Every approach and idea has its scope of application, and if you do not need it right now or the idea looks weird or unusual, it does not make it wrong. Remember to maintain experience diversity inside your team, and the project will have healthy architecture, good quality, and valuable results.