5 ms·
Perhaps it depends on one's definition of "generalist". Having the flexibility, willingness, and capacity to learn almost anything as needed (easily or with in
by blunte 8y ago
Perhaps it depends on one's definition of "generalist".
Having the flexibility, willingness, and capacity to learn almost anything as needed (easily or with intense extra effort) is the hallmark of a generalist by my definition.
- mlthoughts2018 8y agoI had a different reaction. All the things mentioned in the parent comment are subfields of applied mathematics and scientific computing. Hopping between those different subfields quickly is actually more an indication of deep vertical specialization, and is nearly the opposite of being a generalist. In software, I’d consider a generalist to be someone whose career goals are only focused on the business problems, rather than career goals focused on developing a specific skill, mastering a specific technology, or becoming known as a famous expert within a specific field or job function. For example, I once worked with a colleague who was an amazing polyglot programmer. Our boss tasked him with fixing an asynchronous web service, including a ton of work in the frontend. It had high business value, but my teammate wanted to focus on machine learning in order to create job experience on his resume that would let him get machine learning jobs. While the bosses were busy fussing over essentially the desire for every engineer to be an arbitrarily fungible generalist, this guy quit and moved on to a place that would let him specialize in machine learning.