Tech Leaderism

The Half-Life of Technical Skills

Technical knowledge has a half-life. Over time, its value decays, and what once felt essential can quickly become obsolete. The pace of that decay is accelerating. What used to take a decade now happens in just a few years—or faster in fields like AI.

Not long ago, Hadoop was the centerpiece of every big data strategy. Entire teams were built around it, certifications were in high demand, and knowing how to manage clusters was a prized skill. Today, very few organizations are investing in Hadoop. The ecosystem shifted toward cloud-native, serverless, and real-time approaches, leaving those who never moved beyond Hadoop struggling to stay relevant.

This is the reality of working in tech: the real skill is not mastering a tool once, but mastering the ability to learn, unlearn and relearn continuously. Past expertise has value but relying only on it is dangerous. What matters is how quickly we adapt when that expertise no longer applies.

Leaders have a responsibility here too. Staying curious themselves is only half the job. They also need to create environments where learning is not an afterthought but part of the daily rhythm. Teams that treat learning as a continuous process don't just keep up with change, they thrive on it.