This is a difficult but fun question. It depends on what level one would want a replacement to function. If merely adequate, for my current job I think I could train a replacement of above-average intelligence in 8 years of 8-10 hour days, five day a week. However, that is only to to do the very bare minimum of the role as it is written on paper and as management understands it, not what I actually do.

I don’t think anyone not of above-average intelligence has any real hope of performing my current role so I won’t consider that hypothetical person at all, but to do what I actually do day to day in the role (which is far and above what most people could do, or would be expected to do), I’d say it’d take 15 years minimum to train my replacement — more likely 20 unless they were much smarter than I am. I say none of that to glorify myself, but there was a reason I was hand-picked for the job, honestly.

One of those reasons is that in my current role, not only do I have to understand and to perform extremely technically complex tasks in a wide variety of domains and knowledge areas, but I have to be able to discuss this directly with customers on a daily basis. These customers are often completely non-technical and have little to no understanding of what they need for their own environments or how anything in my domain works.

In other words, not only do I need high-end tech skills, I need better-than-average people skills. In IT, this combination is as rare as a white peacock.

It’s funny, two things that people on either side of the divide told me were worthless — obsession with computers and people skills — turned out to be extremely, extremely valuable when combined. Separately, you can make a little money with either one. Combine those, and you can do a whole lot better.

Well, all that discursion aside, if I were to get a fresh and ready person of above-average intelligence and with ok people skills, I think I could have them doing my job at my level and with my documented and undocumented responsibilities in 15 years.