Farewell to IT’s life experience
Emerging in the era of mainframes and punched cards, life experience stood as the bedrock of technology innovation and operational excellence, shaping IT through grit and ingenuity. It was nurtured by countless hours in dimly lit server rooms, years spent debugging code, and the scars earned from countless production outages. Life experience thrived in an era where mentorship was a rite of passage, and respect for those who’d “been there, done that” formed the foundation of IT culture. Tragically, it passed away quietly, overshadowed by the meteoric rise of certifications, buzzwords, and an obsession with speed.
Life experience’s humble beginnings
Life experience was born into an industry where technology required specialized knowledge and access to expensive, cumbersome hardware, making it inaccessible to the average person. Its parents were Problem Solving and Curiosity, and it grew up surrounded by innovators like Grace Hopper and pioneers who wrote code with paper tape. Life experience was the accumulation of hard-earned knowledge — of systems, users, and the art of navigating complexity.
Back then, learning wasn’t instantaneous. Google wasn’t around to provide instant answers, and Stack Overflow was but a glimmer in the eyes of future developers. If you didn’t know something, you had to figure it out the hard way. Life experience wasn’t about perfection but about resilience: the ability to learn from failure and come back stronger.
The glory days
The 1980s and 1990s were the golden years for life experience. The rise of personal computing and networking demanded professionals who knew how to build and troubleshoot from the ground up. Organizations sought out those with life experience because they could predict issues, teach others, and provide stability in a rapidly evolving field.
During these decades, IT was as much an art as it was a science. Life experience wasn’t measured by certifications alone; it was reflected in the stories shared at conferences, the camaraderie of solving a late-night server crash, and the quiet satisfaction of seeing a system hum along perfectly after weeks of struggle. Mentorship thrived, and the knowledge of one generation was passed to the next in person, often over the whir of cooling fans.
The decline
The decline of life experience began slowly. Following the golden years of the 1980s and 1990s, where mentorship and practical wisdom reigned supreme, the 2000s saw certifications grow in importance. At first, this wasn’t a bad thing — certifications provided a standardized way to validate skills. But over time, they began to replace the value placed on life experience.
Organizations started prioritizing employees with the latest certificates, sometimes at the expense of those with years of practical know-how. Terms like “junior engineer” and “senior engineer” became less about capability and more about hitting arbitrary milestones on a career ladder. The industry began to confuse “knowing the theory” with “knowing the job.”
Simultaneously, technology itself shifted. The rise of cloud computing, automation, and DevOps ushered in an era of abstraction. Engineers no longer had to touch physical hardware or understand the nuances of bare-metal systems. While this abstraction brought incredible efficiency, it also created a generation of IT professionals far removed from the foundational elements of their craft.
Life experience struggled to find its place. Where once it had been a mentor and a guide, it became an afterthought. The rapid pace of technological change made years of expertise seem obsolete, replaced by the shiny newness of tools, platforms, and methodologies.
The final nail in the coffin
In recent years, the industry’s obsession with agility, speed, and cost-cutting delivered the final blow.
Hiring practices began favoring younger, cheaper workers with “potential” over seasoned professionals with proven track records. Organizations were drawn to the allure of fresh ideas and lower costs, often overlooking the long-term value of institutional knowledge. This shift led to a loss of continuity and mentorship, as seasoned experts were pushed out in favor of a transient workforce unprepared to navigate the industry’s deeper challenges. Companies embraced the gig economy, where short-term contracts left little room for institutional knowledge — or life experience — to take root. Older workers were labeled as “outdated” or “resistant to change” despite their adaptability and wealth of insights.
The culture shifted, too. The rise of remote work and online learning platforms eroded the opportunities for in-person mentorship that had sustained life experience for decades. Newcomers to IT often found themselves learning in isolation, armed with tutorials but devoid of guidance from those who had faced and conquered similar challenges.
And so, life experience quietly faded. Its voice, once loud and respected, became a whisper drowned out by the cacophony of Slack notifications, vendor pitches, and AI-generated solutions.
A world without life experience
The loss of life experience leaves a void that’s hard to measure but impossible to ignore. Without it, organizations struggle to anticipate long-term consequences or manage the complexities of legacy systems. Outages that could have been avoided with foresight become headline news. Project timelines grow longer as teams reinvent the wheel, lacking the wisdom to see around corners.
For individuals, the absence of life experience means a steeper learning curve. Younger IT professionals, though talented and eager, often lack the depth of understanding that comes from years of hands-on problem-solving. They’re left to navigate challenges alone, with little to anchor them to the lessons of the past.
The IT industry itself has become more fragmented. While new technologies emerge at breakneck speed, the human element of technology — empathy, collaboration, and storytelling — has taken a backseat. Life experience was a bridge between the technical and the human, a reminder that IT isn’t just about systems but about people.
Remembering life experience
In the wake of its passing, there’s been an outpouring of nostalgia. Professionals from across the globe have shared their memories of working alongside life experience:
- The grizzled sysadmin who saved the day during a data center meltdown.
- The senior engineer who could predict a system crash hours before it happened.
- The mentor who taught not just how to code but how to think.
These stories remind us that life experience wasn’t just about knowledge; it was about perspective, judgment, and heart. It was the collective wisdom of an industry, passed down like an heirloom, shaping the future one lesson at a time.
A call to action
Though life experience is gone, its spirit can live on — if we let it. It requires a conscious effort to value people over processes, mentorship over speed, and depth over surface-level understanding.
To honor life experience, organizations must reimagine their approach to hiring and training. Instead of chasing buzzwords, they should seek out candidates who demonstrate adaptability, curiosity, and resilience. Younger professionals must be given opportunities to learn not just from textbooks but from the stories and scars of their peers.
And perhaps most importantly, those of us who remain in the industry must step up as stewards of knowledge. We must share what we’ve learned, admit to our failures, and champion the idea that experience — earned through time and effort — is irreplaceable.
In memoriam
Life experience may no longer be with us, but its legacy endures in every mentor who passes on wisdom, every organization that values experience, and every individual who commits to sharing lessons learned. Let us take actionable steps to preserve this legacy by fostering mentorship, valuing depth of knowledge, and bridging the gap between innovation and understanding. It’s in the lines of code that still run decades after they were written. It’s in the networks we built, the systems we designed, and the lessons we learned the hard way.
Rest in peace, life experience. You will be missed — but not forgotten. Let us carry forward the torch you lit, ensuring that the IT industry remains not just a field of endless innovation but a community of shared wisdom.
Will Kelly is a technology industry writer and marketer. Medium is home to his personal writing. He’s written for CIO, TechTarget, InfoWorld, and others. His career includes stints in technical writing, training, and marketing. Follow him on X: @willkelly.
