Experience is one of those long words with multiple meanings, and in many instances is really a four letter word. Sort of like looking for truffles (is it a candy, or a fungus) or lead (the element with the atomic number of 82, the graphitic part of a pencil, or the verb for "to show the way").
If experience means, "Can I get the job done?", I would expect that for problems in my areas of expertice, the answer is yes. There is no guarantee as to how fast. If nothing else, I am a perfectionist. Some projects might be stopped before perfection is attained, but the location of perfection for that project will be known. Occasionally projects have to be abandoned because the project is too far out of my knowledge base. Knowing something is out of scope is a valuable thing.
It would be wonderful to show you 20 years of MS&E experience. Genetics and opportunity conspired to see that didn't happen. My experience seems to be all over the ball park, as shown in here. This genetics link has caused me to spend a lot more time thinking, mostly constructively, about experience and the jobsearch process than most people do.
Looking at other professionals in MS&E, I see experience like: heat treating 1 inch bolts made of AISI-1015 steel, heat treating 2 inch bolts of AISI-1010 steel, heat treating 1.5 inch nuts of AISI-1330 steel, .... Things seem confined to a common family of materials (in this case low carbon, low alloy steels), to a common property (in this case heat treating), and to a common size (in this case, around 1 inch).
What I've studied and worked on is all over the map, pretty much any material, any property, any size. And a bunch of things that don't have anything to do with materials or sizes.
The principle of Matter Realisations is a person who can start from nothing and produce a solution. This capability is something which had to be learned, although inherent ability had something to do with it. He grew up in the family businesses (starting at about age 7-8), and his father had no patience for teaching. He assigned tasks and expected them to get accomplished.
The principle has something like 80% recall on read material on topics of interest. Science fiction was something of interest. To this day, he can pick up a book he read as a teenager and within a page or two, recall the remainder of the book (or about 80% of the remainder). No, science fiction isn't going to solve your problem. The same works on most math, physics, chemistry, ... textbooks, articles in technical magazines, etc.
The principle is very interested in house renovation and woodworking. He has demonstrated many times the ability to reproduce a result in a renovation that was only seen a time or two. No prior "experience" was needed, just a recipe to produce a result. This same result happens in cooking (since age 5). In over 40 years of cooking, only 2 or 3 recipes didn't turn out.