Kidding. You ask a legitimate question. This is by no means a comprehensive answer, but...
1. Domain knowledge. I think most of us enjoy the creative and problem solving parts of software engineering. That takes domain knowledge and domain knowledge takes time. You will get an intro to your domain in a year, but mastery? I would bet against it.
2. Working on a hard project from start to finish and sticking around for the lessons learned after. This is just a math problem. You're useless for at least 30 days no matter how good you are. (More like 90 IMO...). So if you start working on a larger project with a new team, and that project takes 6 months, your year is ending rapidly.
3. Mastering truly large code bases. Not everything is a rails app. Some things are just hard. Mastery is difficult to achieve.
4. Engineering leadership. Even if you don't want to be on a management track, it's important for a seasoned, senior-level engineer to be able to lead/drive a project from start to finish.
...And I suppose you may think "But I do all of those." And maybe you do? Or maybe it's just really hard to see something that you're convinced isn't there.
Domain knowledge is only useful if you work in the same domain year after year. That's often not the case. Atleast I've worked with three completely different domains the past year.
Exactly. And you can't learn domain knowledge that quickly. And there is a pile of money and senior-level engineering positions available to those who can marry understanding of the technology with domain expertise.
Kidding. You ask a legitimate question. This is by no means a comprehensive answer, but...
1. Domain knowledge. I think most of us enjoy the creative and problem solving parts of software engineering. That takes domain knowledge and domain knowledge takes time. You will get an intro to your domain in a year, but mastery? I would bet against it.
2. Working on a hard project from start to finish and sticking around for the lessons learned after. This is just a math problem. You're useless for at least 30 days no matter how good you are. (More like 90 IMO...). So if you start working on a larger project with a new team, and that project takes 6 months, your year is ending rapidly.
3. Mastering truly large code bases. Not everything is a rails app. Some things are just hard. Mastery is difficult to achieve.
4. Engineering leadership. Even if you don't want to be on a management track, it's important for a seasoned, senior-level engineer to be able to lead/drive a project from start to finish.
...And I suppose you may think "But I do all of those." And maybe you do? Or maybe it's just really hard to see something that you're convinced isn't there.