5 ms·

It's rare to see arguments in favor of being a generalist over a specialist. In the end, they both have their pros and cons. > You simply have more chance of c

by jolmg 8y ago

It's rare to see arguments in favor of being a generalist over a specialist. In the end, they both have their pros and cons. > You simply have more chance of career success if you have more skills. I think that depends on how one intends to apply those skills. Being a generalist means that you don't depend on any one particular skill to always keep you in demand, and you can do more on your own to do tasks that specialists need to do in groups. However, I think a group of specialists will always outperform a lone generalist. Because of that, I imagine specialists are in general more preferable in a company environment. EDIT: I'm curious if there are people here that have chosen to practice a wide breadth of related skills, as opposed to lasering in to one very specific skill. Do you feel glad/happy about it, or have you regretted it? EDIT 2: What is a generalist or a specialist is of course very relative. One's specialist is another's generalist. I also get the sense that, in the tech world, what is a specialist today, is a generalist tomorrow. Maybe that's just natural of an expanding industry.

mathattack 8y ago
Ups and downs on being a generalist. - If I stuck with a focus on database programming from my early career, I would have a very valuable specialty. - If I stayed more technical I probably would have weathered 2008 with more sanity. But... - Being a generalist opened up some international work. - I met my wife on a career tangent. - I get bored doing the same thing over and over. - My last two roles (in a long career) have finally pulled everything together.
- techstrategist 8y ago
  That last point is key. You can’t always see how things could come together, but there may be a serendipitous connection there. In my (shorter) experience, when I’m looking for a role I can’t see ahead to predict or drive how things will pull together, but when I look back a few months into a new job they usually do.
nicolashahn 8y ago
I'm only on my third year of being a programmer, and have worked in fullstack, devops, and academia. Those of my peers that have stuck with one thing seem to be much more easily employed. My resume looks impressive but when they realize I only have a year of experience instead of three in the thing they want, it goes down hill. "But I know all these other things (that you don't care about)!" isn't super useful.
- jolmg 8y ago
  I imagine the larger the employing organization, the greater the preference for specialists. The extreme example of a small organization, self-employment, is probably the ideal working environment for a generalist. > "But I know all these other things (that you don't care about)!" Having the skills be related to each other is also key. If you can't mix the skills in what you're doing, in a way that no 2 specialists can easily coordinate, then that's not very useful. I think it's a matter of making use of one's advantages, but it's probably true that it's easier for a specialist, if all they have to do is apply to well known organizations for employment, as opposed to starting a new business or applying to startups.
- tomrod 8y ago
  What you have is the ability to quickly pivot your existing toolkit to suit the needs the teams considering you need.
killjoywashere 8y ago
Undergrad in physics. 7 years in the military. Medical school, self-taught computing (mainly Unix, web stuff, and python), surgical internship, more programming, residency, more programming. Now medical director of a clinical lab with 40 staff and major research in progress, published, overseeing clinical and research employees across 10 timezones, working across 13 time zones, have briefed to highest levels of government. Stayed married and my kids seem to be doing ok. And the sword of Damocles hangs over my neck ever day. Worth it? Probably, but still not actually clear.
- Aeolun 8y ago
  Why the sword?
- SpanishConf 8y ago
  Jesus Fucking Christ. As someone who's 19 years old and struggling with life (see my post history if you want to know more, but it ain't pretty, heh) you've sure done a lot of things and congratulations for you success! You seem to have an unlimited thirst for knowledge. I envy that at a personal level.
  - Aeolun 8y ago
    If you’re still 19 years old you’ll get there. Especially if you want to.
- cix_pkez 8y ago
  Thanks for serving and glad to know someone with your passionate commitment to knowledge is helping advance medicine.
tylerjwilk00 8y ago
Generalist because it's in my nature [1] "When environmental conditions change, generalists are able to adapt, but specialists tend to fall victim to extinction much more easily." [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generalist_and_specialist_species https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generalist_and_specialist_sp...
scarface74 8y ago
I restarted my software development career around 2009 after being at one company too long and after 8 years and 4 job changes, I went from being what for all intents and purposes a junior .Net developer to the dev team lead based solely on knowing the Microsoft stack really well. At the company where I was the dev lead, I first encountered outside consultants who were there to “help” us transform the company and “move us to the cloud”. After realizing in hindsight how easy it was being a consultant - in the land of the blind the one eyed man is king - I realized that coming at AWS consultancy from the viewpoint of a software architect with some dev ops experience and some infrastructure experience I could be the two eyed king that may be had just a little blurry vision in one eye. So, after changing jobs again last year, and taking a slight demotion (not in pay - in responsible) I’m on a four year journey to be a real “full stack consultant”. Someone who knows the front end well enough to talk to the front end guys, middleware (.Net/Node/Python) , databases, Linux, Docker, Devops, netops (at least on AWS) and maybe a project management certification. There are a few gaps and a few more certifications I need, but I think I should have enough breadth as a consultant for the high paying jobs and enough depth to be your typical “full stack developer” to be able to land a job quickly. I will see....
- tomcam 8y ago
  Are you sure you need certifications? Not skeptical, just curious. And what would certifications be?
  - OJFord 8y ago
    I tend to assume consultancies are exactly the target audience for these sorts of certifications - and it probably does make sense, so they can pitch to a client that they can offer X-many Y-certified consultants for $Z. Whether their clients tend to actually be familiar with the organisations endorsing or providing the Y certification I have no idea, but even if all it does is give them a warm fuzzy feeling, that's probably enough to make it worthwhile for the consultancy that wants their business.
  - scarface74 8y ago
    Yes. In particular, to be an “Amazon Partner” your company has to have a certain number of certifications. It also helps to have some type of project management certification. Your skepticism of certifications is well founded, I’ve come across many “paper tigers” who had certifications up the wazoo but couldn’t code/architect thier way out of a wet paper bag.
indigochill 8y ago
I've sort of accidentally jumped all over the place. In high school I excelled in writing but ran calculations at an electrical engineering company. In college (studying journalism/marketing) I helped a startup with ethical stealth social marketing. Then I left college to do tech support at my dream company while completing my degree remotely. Eventually taught myself just enough Python to pivot into a junior fullstack position (and have since had several promotions there). Now my interest is shifting to low-level computing and I'm getting my MS with a focus on high-performance computing and operating systems, but applying those principles to our cloud initiative (and after my MS is over, I plan to focus on hardware and electrical engineering MOOCs). Where that'll take me (if anywhere), I have no idea. I occasionally regret not majoring in CS from the start and sometimes I think doubling down on the fullstack thing would be a more stable career move, but it's been a fun, weird ride and I plan to continue following my natural curiosity at least until stability becomes more of a requirement.
- techstrategist 8y ago
  Very curious about the “ethical stealth social marketing” if you care to share more.
virgilp 8y ago
I have tried to maintain a generalist role[1]. It's worked very well for me so far - and there's some peace of mind in knowing that if needed, you can switch areas reasonably easy. And I harbor the hope that at some point (when kids go to university) I may start my own business, since I've looked for enhancing those skills. It's not without downsides though - you get the occasional impostor syndrome (since you'll never be able have the depth you wish/ know you could achieve, in any area). It's hard to balance being at least "good enough" at the current task with broadening your knowledge, and it can be straining at times. And also, though in theory you can get hired anywhere - in practice, relatively few companies will appreciate you enough to pay you well, since most companies' ideal candidates are really specialists in very narrow fields (also those ideal candidates tend to be unicorns, so companies settle for generalists, but that's a different discussion). The end result of this is that, unless you're willing to take a significant pay cut, the opportunities to switch companies might get increasingly rare (but opportunities to switch roles within company will be present). [1] I've developed (professionally/ for money) compilers, VMs, image processing, web apps (mostly middleware), desktop apps, "big data"(spark, kafka streams, etc.); Have done product management, data science, and even worked on the architecture of a DSP processor at a time. Worked in most of the "mainstream" languages (Java, Scala, C. C++, Javascript, Python, C#, Vb.net; and of course various kinds of assembly language).

by jolmg 8y ago

mathattack 8y ago

Ups and downs on being a generalist. - If I stuck with a focus on database programming from my early career, I would have a very valuable specialty. - If I stayed more technical I probably would have weathered 2008 with more sanity. But... - Being a generalist opened up some international work. - I met my wife on a career tangent. - I get bored doing the same thing over and over. - My last two roles (in a long career) have finally pulled everything together.

techstrategist 8y ago
That last point is key. You can’t always see how things could come together, but there may be a serendipitous connection there. In my (shorter) experience, when I’m looking for a role I can’t see ahead to predict or drive how things will pull together, but when I look back a few months into a new job they usually do.

nicolashahn 8y ago

I'm only on my third year of being a programmer, and have worked in fullstack, devops, and academia. Those of my peers that have stuck with one thing seem to be much more easily employed. My resume looks impressive but when they realize I only have a year of experience instead of three in the thing they want, it goes down hill. "But I know all these other things (that you don't care about)!" isn't super useful.

jolmg 8y ago
I imagine the larger the employing organization, the greater the preference for specialists. The extreme example of a small organization, self-employment, is probably the ideal working environment for a generalist. > "But I know all these other things (that you don't care about)!" Having the skills be related to each other is also key. If you can't mix the skills in what you're doing, in a way that no 2 specialists can easily coordinate, then that's not very useful. I think it's a matter of making use of one's advantages, but it's probably true that it's easier for a specialist, if all they have to do is apply to well known organizations for employment, as opposed to starting a new business or applying to startups.
tomrod 8y ago
What you have is the ability to quickly pivot your existing toolkit to suit the needs the teams considering you need.

killjoywashere 8y ago

Undergrad in physics. 7 years in the military. Medical school, self-taught computing (mainly Unix, web stuff, and python), surgical internship, more programming, residency, more programming. Now medical director of a clinical lab with 40 staff and major research in progress, published, overseeing clinical and research employees across 10 timezones, working across 13 time zones, have briefed to highest levels of government. Stayed married and my kids seem to be doing ok. And the sword of Damocles hangs over my neck ever day. Worth it? Probably, but still not actually clear.

Aeolun 8y ago
Why the sword?
SpanishConf 8y ago
Jesus Fucking Christ. As someone who's 19 years old and struggling with life (see my post history if you want to know more, but it ain't pretty, heh) you've sure done a lot of things and congratulations for you success! You seem to have an unlimited thirst for knowledge. I envy that at a personal level.
- Aeolun 8y ago
  If you’re still 19 years old you’ll get there. Especially if you want to.
cix_pkez 8y ago
Thanks for serving and glad to know someone with your passionate commitment to knowledge is helping advance medicine.

tylerjwilk00 8y ago

Generalist because it's in my nature [1] "When environmental conditions change, generalists are able to adapt, but specialists tend to fall victim to extinction much more easily." [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generalist_and_specialist_species https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generalist_and_specialist_sp...

scarface74 8y ago

I restarted my software development career around 2009 after being at one company too long and after 8 years and 4 job changes, I went from being what for all intents and purposes a junior .Net developer to the dev team lead based solely on knowing the Microsoft stack really well. At the company where I was the dev lead, I first encountered outside consultants who were there to “help” us transform the company and “move us to the cloud”. After realizing in hindsight how easy it was being a consultant - in the land of the blind the one eyed man is king - I realized that coming at AWS consultancy from the viewpoint of a software architect with some dev ops experience and some infrastructure experience I could be the two eyed king that may be had just a little blurry vision in one eye. So, after changing jobs again last year, and taking a slight demotion (not in pay - in responsible) I’m on a four year journey to be a real “full stack consultant”. Someone who knows the front end well enough to talk to the front end guys, middleware (.Net/Node/Python) , databases, Linux, Docker, Devops, netops (at least on AWS) and maybe a project management certification. There are a few gaps and a few more certifications I need, but I think I should have enough breadth as a consultant for the high paying jobs and enough depth to be your typical “full stack developer” to be able to land a job quickly. I will see....

tomcam 8y ago
Are you sure you need certifications? Not skeptical, just curious. And what would certifications be?
- OJFord 8y ago
  I tend to assume consultancies are exactly the target audience for these sorts of certifications - and it probably does make sense, so they can pitch to a client that they can offer X-many Y-certified consultants for $Z. Whether their clients tend to actually be familiar with the organisations endorsing or providing the Y certification I have no idea, but even if all it does is give them a warm fuzzy feeling, that's probably enough to make it worthwhile for the consultancy that wants their business.
- scarface74 8y ago
  Yes. In particular, to be an “Amazon Partner” your company has to have a certain number of certifications. It also helps to have some type of project management certification. Your skepticism of certifications is well founded, I’ve come across many “paper tigers” who had certifications up the wazoo but couldn’t code/architect thier way out of a wet paper bag.

indigochill 8y ago

I've sort of accidentally jumped all over the place. In high school I excelled in writing but ran calculations at an electrical engineering company. In college (studying journalism/marketing) I helped a startup with ethical stealth social marketing. Then I left college to do tech support at my dream company while completing my degree remotely. Eventually taught myself just enough Python to pivot into a junior fullstack position (and have since had several promotions there). Now my interest is shifting to low-level computing and I'm getting my MS with a focus on high-performance computing and operating systems, but applying those principles to our cloud initiative (and after my MS is over, I plan to focus on hardware and electrical engineering MOOCs). Where that'll take me (if anywhere), I have no idea. I occasionally regret not majoring in CS from the start and sometimes I think doubling down on the fullstack thing would be a more stable career move, but it's been a fun, weird ride and I plan to continue following my natural curiosity at least until stability becomes more of a requirement.

techstrategist 8y ago
Very curious about the “ethical stealth social marketing” if you care to share more.

virgilp 8y ago

I have tried to maintain a generalist role[1]. It's worked very well for me so far - and there's some peace of mind in knowing that if needed, you can switch areas reasonably easy. And I harbor the hope that at some point (when kids go to university) I may start my own business, since I've looked for enhancing those skills. It's not without downsides though - you get the occasional impostor syndrome (since you'll never be able have the depth you wish/ know you could achieve, in any area). It's hard to balance being at least "good enough" at the current task with broadening your knowledge, and it can be straining at times. And also, though in theory you can get hired anywhere - in practice, relatively few companies will appreciate you enough to pay you well, since most companies' ideal candidates are really specialists in very narrow fields (also those ideal candidates tend to be unicorns, so companies settle for generalists, but that's a different discussion). The end result of this is that, unless you're willing to take a significant pay cut, the opportunities to switch companies might get increasingly rare (but opportunities to switch roles within company will be present). [1] I've developed (professionally/ for money) compilers, VMs, image processing, web apps (mostly middleware), desktop apps, "big data"(spark, kafka streams, etc.); Have done product management, data science, and even worked on the architecture of a DSP processor at a time. Worked in most of the "mainstream" languages (Java, Scala, C. C++, Javascript, Python, C#, Vb.net; and of course various kinds of assembly language).