Use 'Explain Like I'm...' as a Difficulty Dial

Same topic, wildly different explanations depending on who you say you are.

The Dial

Explain like I'm 5:         analogies, no jargon, very short
Explain like I'm 12:        simple language, some detail
Explain like I'm a junior:  technical but patient, covers basics
Explain like I'm a senior:  skip the basics, get to the nuance
Explain like I'm a PhD:     assume full domain knowledge, go deep

Examples

For learning something new:

Explain Kubernetes like I'm a frontend developer
who's never touched infrastructure.

For going deeper:

I already understand the basics of transformers.
Explain attention mechanisms at a graduate level.
Skip the intro.

For communicating up:

Explain this database outage like I'm a non-technical
CEO who needs to understand the business impact.

The trick

It’s not just about simplifying. “Explain like I’m a senior engineer” makes Claude skip the hand-holding and surface the non-obvious stuff. Match the level to what you actually need.