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Startups want generalists. Larger companies want specialists. The more areas of expertise you have mid/Sr.-level skills in the smaller the company you should t

by awb 6y ago

Startups want generalists. Larger companies want specialists. The more areas of expertise you have mid/Sr.-level skills in the smaller the company you should try to work at. For example someone who can code frontend, backend and run DevOps is invaluable to an early stage company as it means hiring 1 person instead of 3 (which they probably don't have the workload or budget to hire anyway). At larger companies, your other skills won't net you much because they have 40hrs/week of frontend work they want you to focus on and continue to get better at.

georgeecollins 6y ago
Right! What I would say is small organizations want / need a variety of skills. They also tend to actually know who they are hiring and why, not go through some HR "process" that filters resumes in an automated way. Small organizations can be start ups, successful well established companies that are smaller, or autonomous organizations that are owned by a larger company but that need to run their own business. How would you find these organizations? Startups are pretty easy to find because they need to promote themselves. And you are here so you should know how to find them. For successful smaller organizations that are not start ups, look at what verticals are important (and profitable) in the region of the world you want to live. In that vertical you will find small, really successful companies that are not well known. See if they have openings.
jkingsbery 6y ago
>Startups want generalists. Larger companies want specialists This is sometimes true. I've worked at startups though that only wanted to hire people that had familiarity in their chosen stack, since they have short runway and don't have time to invest in people's ramp up. In the current large company I work for we generally favor "fungible" software engineers (but, in one's day to day work, maybe a particular engineer will wear fewer hats at a large company). When you interview at a company, you should interview your interviewers to find out whether this is true in the particular situation you find yourself in.

by awb 6y ago

georgeecollins 6y ago

Right! What I would say is small organizations want / need a variety of skills. They also tend to actually know who they are hiring and why, not go through some HR "process" that filters resumes in an automated way. Small organizations can be start ups, successful well established companies that are smaller, or autonomous organizations that are owned by a larger company but that need to run their own business. How would you find these organizations? Startups are pretty easy to find because they need to promote themselves. And you are here so you should know how to find them. For successful smaller organizations that are not start ups, look at what verticals are important (and profitable) in the region of the world you want to live. In that vertical you will find small, really successful companies that are not well known. See if they have openings.

jkingsbery 6y ago

>Startups want generalists. Larger companies want specialists This is sometimes true. I've worked at startups though that only wanted to hire people that had familiarity in their chosen stack, since they have short runway and don't have time to invest in people's ramp up. In the current large company I work for we generally favor "fungible" software engineers (but, in one's day to day work, maybe a particular engineer will wear fewer hats at a large company). When you interview at a company, you should interview your interviewers to find out whether this is true in the particular situation you find yourself in.