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One way of thinking of engineers is that they exist along two axis, junior => senior and generalist => specialist. So, when hiring, you might say something lik

One way of thinking of engineers is that they exist along two axis, junior => senior and generalist => specialist. So, when hiring, you might say something like, I want my team to be 50% senior generalists, 25% senior specialists, and 25% junior specialists. And, uh, yeah, junior specialists would probably end up being someone who can't really produce much of anything.

keyle 6y ago
But... how is that a career path... specialist vs. generalist? I mean I'm a generalist, and if you look at my 20 years in the industry, I'm a generalist because of the trail of work I've left behind; as in work, all of which needed to happen. For example, in the 2000s, we mostly used PHP and MySQL, today, it's very different. So being a specialist with, let's say, 10+ years experience, would be quite difficult. I'm sure even the C++ people can say C++ has changed a lot in 20 years(?) and are doing things radically different today? How could I be a React specialist with 20 years in the industry? Forget the past?
- jmchuster 6y ago
  Well, you can't have a 20-year example in React, but let's say you hire a 10-year expert. Then such an individual might balk at things like, evaluate different frameworks to rewrite our frontend instead in, write an iOS app for us in Swift, write backend endpoints, decide how to make the UI performant considering the frontend/backend/database, spin up a new small service for a one-off tool. In some sense, it's almost an attitude thing, which also reflects in what you've chosen to do in your career. As an extreme example, I have interviewed individuals who made it clear that they were a React expert and would not be willing to work on any legacy services that used jquery, any light backend work, anything.
  - keyle 6y ago
    Wow I imagine that candidate didn't get the job... I'd appreciate him if it were a personal policy more so than showing a lack of understanding for the past.

keyle 6y ago

But... how is that a career path... specialist vs. generalist? I mean I'm a generalist, and if you look at my 20 years in the industry, I'm a generalist because of the trail of work I've left behind; as in work, all of which needed to happen. For example, in the 2000s, we mostly used PHP and MySQL, today, it's very different. So being a specialist with, let's say, 10+ years experience, would be quite difficult. I'm sure even the C++ people can say C++ has changed a lot in 20 years(?) and are doing things radically different today? How could I be a React specialist with 20 years in the industry? Forget the past?

jmchuster 6y ago
Well, you can't have a 20-year example in React, but let's say you hire a 10-year expert. Then such an individual might balk at things like, evaluate different frameworks to rewrite our frontend instead in, write an iOS app for us in Swift, write backend endpoints, decide how to make the UI performant considering the frontend/backend/database, spin up a new small service for a one-off tool. In some sense, it's almost an attitude thing, which also reflects in what you've chosen to do in your career. As an extreme example, I have interviewed individuals who made it clear that they were a React expert and would not be willing to work on any legacy services that used jquery, any light backend work, anything.
- keyle 6y ago
  Wow I imagine that candidate didn't get the job... I'd appreciate him if it were a personal policy more so than showing a lack of understanding for the past.