I've spent over a decade as a generalist. If I had to do it over, I would have been shortened that time by half, then specialized. Being a generalist means I

I've spent over a decade as a generalist. If I had to do it over, I would have been shortened that time by half, then specialized. Being a generalist means I understand coding, infrastructure, business decisions, statistics, data analysis, data engineering, backend, web technologies, marketing, and a little sales. It also means I cannot find a job that uses all those skills quite as easily. However, now I'm knee deep in the fast.ai deep learning course[0]. Nearly every one of my previous skills acts as a solid foundation for my new specialization. In a field where with an extreme Pareto distribution (10x effort for a 5% model efficiency increase), I can be in the 50th percentile in deep learning skills, but still produce solutions that solve problems. Currently, I'm positioning myself as a consultant who can solve business problems. I'll use all my skills in doing so, with the focus on deep learning (it's great for structured data analysis!). Being a generalist means I won't get paid for what I can do, but I've gotten lots of feedback that it will let me do things as a specialist that will get me paid. (Because I can work faster and cheaper than 3 people, once you account for hiring and communication frictions.) [0] will be released publicly for free in January