because recruitment for software eng roles is lazy imo. The least effort is to look for someone with experience. I am personally of the opinion that experience

because recruitment for software eng roles is lazy imo. The least effort is to look for someone with experience. I am personally of the opinion that experience isn't a good indicator of programming ability, but it may be an indicator of software engineering capability. See here https://blog.codinghorror.com/skill-disparities-in-programming/ https://blog.codinghorror.com/skill-disparities-in-programmi... (links to a study and talks about this point more) I've worked with masters students who were far better programmers than senior engineers I've worked with.