alt Hacker News> If you reach "senior" after only two years and "principle" after 5, what is left for the next 20 years?
There is nothing left. Not everyone puts in the same dedication towards the craft, of course. It very well might take someone 30 years to reach "principle" (and maybe even never). But 5 years to have "seen it all" is more than reasonable for someone who has a keen interest in what they are doing. It is not like a job dependent on the season, where you only get one each year. In computing, you can see many different scenarios play out in milliseconds. It doesn't need years to go from no experience to having "seen it all".
That is why many in this industry seek management roles as a next step. It opens a new place to find scenarios one has never seen before; to get the start the process all over again.
Er...
I've been programming since I was 7 and I'm old enough to remember the previous AI summer. Somewhere along the way, I've had impact on a few technologies you have heard of, I've coded at almost all levels from (some very specialized) hardware to Prolog, Idris and Coq/Rocq, with large doses of mainstream languages in-between, and I don't think I'll ever be close to having seen in all.
If anyone tells me that they've seen it all in 5 years, I'm going to suspect them of not paying attention.