There’s no easy answer. To gain experience you need to spend time experiencing multiple situations. The experience you gain with side projects that aren’t really “in production” is helpful, but not the same as working for a company that has production systems.
I am encouraged by your elevator example. My first ElixirConf talk about OTP used elevators as the test case. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_8ehmGTVbw
