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Today I was reading a job circular that came into our internal yahoo group. It stated

Android developer needed with 4-5 years of experience.

I am not a developer with that amount of experience. I have started to learn android recently. The point here that caught my eyes is 4-5 years. I thought android is very new. No one should have 4 years experience. So I google to find the history of android. And found this on ctoedge.com,

The Android SDK was first issued as an “early look” release in November 2007. In September 2008, T-Mobile announced the availability of T-Mobile G1, the first smartphone based on the Android platform. A few days after that, Google announced the availability of Android SDK Release Candidate 1.0. In October 2008, Google made the source code of the Android platform available under Apache’s open source license.

Now could you tell me what type of programmers would have 4-5 years of experience in this March, 2012? Do they really exists?

To me its something like Experienced Java programmer needed with 18-20 years of experience

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9  
I'm so good it only takes me two years to get 4-5 years of experience. – Paul Tomblin Mar 15 '12 at 15:09
2  
I feel your pain, but I'm not sure there's really a question here. The answer is obviously "no"... – Doug T. Mar 15 '12 at 15:09
9  
Nothing wrong with the attempt to hire the core guys from Google Android team. – Coder Mar 15 '12 at 15:09
1  
I'd have to see exactly how the posting was formulated, but it could be looking for a developer with 4-5 years of professional experience to develop on Android. Transferrable skills (Java development, other mobile platforms) would be weighted. – Thomas Owens♦ Mar 15 '12 at 15:17
4  
Well, they want an Android developer, and they want one with 4-5 years of (professional) experience. Who says they want a programmer with 4-5 years experience in Android programming? ;-) – Doc Brown Mar 15 '12 at 15:19
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closed as not a real question by unholysampler, thorsten müller, Morons, gnat, Dipan Mehta Mar 15 '12 at 18:13

It's difficult to tell what is being asked here. This question is ambiguous, vague, incomplete, overly broad, or rhetorical and cannot be reasonably answered in its current form. For help clarifying this question so that it can be reopened, see the FAQ.

2 Answers

up vote 9 down vote

I've seen this come up on a few other places I have read and what seems to be the answer is that someone in HR just changes the technology in the job description, while leaving the year requirements the same.

Things like this are reasons why I don't take year requirements too seriously. Clearly they are looking for someone with experience with Android and if you have 1-2 years, I personally would apply and mention your experience in the cover letter. Either they don't get back to you or they do, not much else past that can happen (unless its some kind of scary mafia hit squad lookin for android developers, then I might reconsider applying even if I had 4-5 years of experience). If they seriously are looking for that level of experience, after a while they will have to accept they are not finding it and then find their way to your resume, though I honestly think the person that actually will be interviewing and hiring will not think twice about it.

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up vote 4 down vote

Sounds like a "fill in the blanks" job posting by a clueless HR department.

The candidate will be responsible for designing and developing solutions using [insert tool #1] and [insert tool #2]. Significant [insert tool #3] development experience is a plus for this position. A successful candidate will have a demonstrable [number of] years experience developing [insert tool #1] and [insert tool #2] solutions as well as a 4 year degree in computer science or equivalent.

Some companies and headhunters even have apps that build these postings from templates and blast them out to several online job sites and email subscribers (aka people who've sent them a resume in the past).

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