If only that were true. There is a difference between having 7 years of experience and 1 year of experience 7 times. If he hasn't had a mentor and been in a bubble, it's possible that his skill set is not as high as it "should be" based on the number of years he's been working.

I found myself in a similar situation around 2008. I started programming in 1986 when I was 12 in AppleSoft Basic and assembly, went to college, got a degree in CS in 1996 and spent the first 12 years of my career being a solid C++ "programmer", who dabbled in other languages.

During those 12 years, I was also the only programmer at the company without a mentor. I could write clean code, bit twiddle with the best of them, but hadn't been exposed to sound engineering practices.

In 2008, at the age of 34, I humbled myself, got a job as what I would consider a junior "software engineer" (making about the same thing as I was already making) and spent the next 8 years, learning from others, studying, and job hopping my way between 4 jobs and becoming what I consider a pretty good architect.