@evan too late to vote but my vote would be "very important", pondering that it could have been lower if you asked me in the past, mostly because with the AI tools now it's critical to have someone review the generated code. A less experienced engineer would accept the code as is without thinking of implications
On the flip side of arguments, I also less experience can be good sometimes, having a fearless team member can explore new ideas without the baggage of past experiences
@evan@cosocial.ca "young", "inexperienced", "small". That particular constellation of adjectives would lead to a pretty bad product I think!
The important keyword here is "small". A small but experienced team will run circles around any other combination. Age is less important (but tends to correlate with experience, one would assume.)
I used "professional experience" in this question to differentiate from other uses of the word "experience" in software engineering -- especially "user experience" or "developer experience".
Unfortunately, a lot of people in the comments got hung up on the "professional" part -- whether the work was paid. In retrospect, I think "work experience" might have been a better term to use. Live and learn!
@GustavinoBevilacqua Piuttosto che niente, ok gli IED. Ma io sono fedele alle mine antiuomo, lo sai. I bei tempi di Oto Melara. https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/OTO_Melara