Alright, could someone with more experience tell me if nowadays the job application requirement of "x years experience needed" is something fixed or flexible?

My friends say: "That's the ideal candidate, but they are flexible if need be." but I see employers these days state that the x years experience is in fact mandatory and required.

So.. who can demystify this for me? : )

It depends. If HR wrote it and you talk to the dev team it's flexible. If you're talking to HR then it's not. The key points for me when I interview or review resumes is do you think like a developer. I don't want code monkeys, the positions I review for are software engineers. If you can solve problems and think for yourself and I don't have to teach you how to code, you'll be fine. I usually disregard resumes after the first time I talk to you, you can't get a sense of how they think from that.

The one that kills me is "at least x years of commercial experience in y", which always feels wrong when seen on a junior role

You should always think of a job post as a wish lists even if the poster meant it as minimum requirements ;)

It's a wish list.

If it says 5+ years it's really just saying, we don't want a junior and don't have time to train you to do the job.

Think of it as a competence test rather then a fixed limit.

@demortes Ah yes, I've seen that think-like-a-developer theme as recurring. That's also how I got hired for my last job. I got asked a few reasoning questions and the interviewer liked how I thought.

@katvoira Indeed.

@Flygger Haha, nice.

@C0D4 Interesting.

Ignore it and apply anyway.
Doesn’t matter to you if it’s mandatory or not.
If they ignore you then maybe it is.
If they don’t then clearly it’s not.

Just look at what you need to do the job and apply if you think you can do it

You really don’t need 5 plus years of experience to be proficient in a framework like react or express unless you’re a terribly slow learner. I’ll admit, maybe there are other framework I don’t know about that are complex as hell and take more time to master

@TeachMeCode i think that if you need 5 years to learn a framework (and you are not a moron) it is a shitty framework

Doesn't matter, just apply. Worst case scenario - they say no.

@nebula totally true! Frameworks are meant to make things easier, not harder!

@TrevorTheRat Simple and good advice. : )

@nebula Like, say.. Oracle ADF! Haha.. bad memories. ;P 300 pages documentation for one function..