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I always feel like these types of posts are too kind to generalists. Maybe that's just because I am one and I am falling for the greener grass. It's true I've d

I always feel like these types of posts are too kind to generalists. Maybe that's just because I am one and I am falling for the greener grass. It's true I've done well in my career, but I've never felt particularly competent. I can do a half assed job as a manager, developer, product owner, and salesman, but I am not any better at those tasks than someone who specializes in doing those things. I could argue that I have a little more career resilience, since some creative editing of my resume gives me the ability to apply for 5-6 different careers, but my resume will be suspiciously lacking in details compared to people who have focused. Generalists are definitely at an advantage when it comes to leadership roles and entrepreneurship, but it doesn't do me any good to be good at a role I have no chance to get without networking or a large cash base. I think those who specialize have a more successful career, assuming their specialization doesn't die out. If I had spent the last 10 years being a really good C++ programmer instead of doing a little bit of everything, I'd have a lot of confidence in doing a lot of C++ focused jobs.

Swizec 6y ago
The grass is greener where you water it.
- kmonsen 6y ago
  Never heard this before, and I love it!
jbluepolarbear 6y ago
I guess it’s perspective, I’m a career long generalist and I feel confident that I can be put on any team and preform at or better than the average specialist in the same position. I’ve backed this up with every position I’ve had and have built a network of people that know and trust when I say I can do something. I think that’s more important than any specialist because if I don’t know an answer or how to solve something I will study and learn the material until I do.
- nxc18 6y ago
  I tend to agree, and for strong performers/individuals (or just people who are willing to learn quickly/go outside of their comfort zone), it is often possible to become proficient at many ‘specialized’ roles. Especially with softer things, like moving between Java/C#/Kotlin/Swift, or Android/iOS development. There’s a lot involved in each ecosystem, but there’s also a lot of commonality. And, frankly, we shouldn’t pretend like the average contributor on every team is a genius. There are still roles that probably do require actually specializing to become great at (e.g. graphics/game engine dev comes to mind) but those roles are comparably rare. Most of the Android/iOS/Java/C#/React/JS/TypeScript/etc developers I’ve met could become proficient in any of those other technologies, they just choose not to, perhaps out of comfort. FWIW, in my personal experience, willingness to learn new things/broaden perspective & skill base (a.k.a. being a generalist) is correlated with job performance to the point where ‘not in my job description’ and ‘no I won’t learn UIKit, I’m an Android developer’ stand out as major red flags. “I don’t have time to learn React because I need to familiarize myself with the 8 new types of pointers C++ added this release’ feels a little more reasonable, but again, the great C++ developers I’ve met are still willing to get their hands dirty in other areas. Tl;dr specialists are (usually) generalists with an attitude problem
  - jbluepolarbear 6y ago
    I started my career in digital media on interactive installations and I think that is the most influential position I’ve ever had. Every application was different and designed to the clients creative needs; wrote graphics engines, networking engines, transparent h264 format, hardware/software device integration, etc.
  - KptMarchewa 6y ago
    I kind of don't know where to put myself on that spectrum. While I'm dealing with a pretty narrow, specialist role - data engineering, there is extreme breadth of tools and approaches in the field. I feel that internally I'm generalist, picking up new tools and ideas with ease. Especially compared to people that mastered internals of Oracle DB for 20 years.
scruple 6y ago
I have a very good friend who leaned into C++ hard about 10 years ago. He's now sitting on one of the languages sub-committees. I think he'll never have any shortage of employment opportunities doing work that he finds interesting. At the same time, I leaned into Ruby hard. I'm now leading a team that writes JavaScript and, quite frankly, I do not have the same confidence. I'm not even confident that I'll be writing JavaScript in the next 1-2 years...
- tmotwu 6y ago
  Interesting perspective. I'm on the other end of the coin. Work with mostly C++. Looking at job boards, there are endless opportunities for Ruby and JavaScript positions, not so much for C++ these days. JavaScript will probably be fine for as long as the web exists.
  - scruple 6y ago
    There's a lot of churn in projects / jobs but also in tooling, ecosystem, etc... I've written web applications in: Ruby, Python, C#, Elixir, and JavaScript in the last 5 years alone. I could technically add Lua to that list, too. I can get a job done, even jobs that are fairly complex, and sometimes (I'd wager I'm batting 0.500 for whatever that's worth) those projects do have long legs... But I don't have the sort of depth of skill or command of language and specific tooling that I expected to have at this point in my career. That is what feeds into my feelings.
tjs8rj 6y ago
Another way of thinking about this is absolute returns vs risk-adjusted returns. Maybe as a specialist you’d have higher absolute returns, but the probability that your speciality dies may mean your risk adjusted returns are higher for generalists.
- ghaff 6y ago
  You didn't want to be the go-to Y2K guy in 2001. Or the world performance expert in some now obsolete computer architecture.

Swizec 6y ago

The grass is greener where you water it.

kmonsen 6y ago
Never heard this before, and I love it!

jbluepolarbear 6y ago

I guess it’s perspective, I’m a career long generalist and I feel confident that I can be put on any team and preform at or better than the average specialist in the same position. I’ve backed this up with every position I’ve had and have built a network of people that know and trust when I say I can do something. I think that’s more important than any specialist because if I don’t know an answer or how to solve something I will study and learn the material until I do.

nxc18 6y ago
I tend to agree, and for strong performers/individuals (or just people who are willing to learn quickly/go outside of their comfort zone), it is often possible to become proficient at many ‘specialized’ roles. Especially with softer things, like moving between Java/C#/Kotlin/Swift, or Android/iOS development. There’s a lot involved in each ecosystem, but there’s also a lot of commonality. And, frankly, we shouldn’t pretend like the average contributor on every team is a genius. There are still roles that probably do require actually specializing to become great at (e.g. graphics/game engine dev comes to mind) but those roles are comparably rare. Most of the Android/iOS/Java/C#/React/JS/TypeScript/etc developers I’ve met could become proficient in any of those other technologies, they just choose not to, perhaps out of comfort. FWIW, in my personal experience, willingness to learn new things/broaden perspective & skill base (a.k.a. being a generalist) is correlated with job performance to the point where ‘not in my job description’ and ‘no I won’t learn UIKit, I’m an Android developer’ stand out as major red flags. “I don’t have time to learn React because I need to familiarize myself with the 8 new types of pointers C++ added this release’ feels a little more reasonable, but again, the great C++ developers I’ve met are still willing to get their hands dirty in other areas. Tl;dr specialists are (usually) generalists with an attitude problem
- jbluepolarbear 6y ago
  I started my career in digital media on interactive installations and I think that is the most influential position I’ve ever had. Every application was different and designed to the clients creative needs; wrote graphics engines, networking engines, transparent h264 format, hardware/software device integration, etc.
- KptMarchewa 6y ago
  I kind of don't know where to put myself on that spectrum. While I'm dealing with a pretty narrow, specialist role - data engineering, there is extreme breadth of tools and approaches in the field. I feel that internally I'm generalist, picking up new tools and ideas with ease. Especially compared to people that mastered internals of Oracle DB for 20 years.

scruple 6y ago

I have a very good friend who leaned into C++ hard about 10 years ago. He's now sitting on one of the languages sub-committees. I think he'll never have any shortage of employment opportunities doing work that he finds interesting. At the same time, I leaned into Ruby hard. I'm now leading a team that writes JavaScript and, quite frankly, I do not have the same confidence. I'm not even confident that I'll be writing JavaScript in the next 1-2 years...

tmotwu 6y ago
Interesting perspective. I'm on the other end of the coin. Work with mostly C++. Looking at job boards, there are endless opportunities for Ruby and JavaScript positions, not so much for C++ these days. JavaScript will probably be fine for as long as the web exists.
- scruple 6y ago
  There's a lot of churn in projects / jobs but also in tooling, ecosystem, etc... I've written web applications in: Ruby, Python, C#, Elixir, and JavaScript in the last 5 years alone. I could technically add Lua to that list, too. I can get a job done, even jobs that are fairly complex, and sometimes (I'd wager I'm batting 0.500 for whatever that's worth) those projects do have long legs... But I don't have the sort of depth of skill or command of language and specific tooling that I expected to have at this point in my career. That is what feeds into my feelings.

tjs8rj 6y ago

Another way of thinking about this is absolute returns vs risk-adjusted returns. Maybe as a specialist you’d have higher absolute returns, but the probability that your speciality dies may mean your risk adjusted returns are higher for generalists.

ghaff 6y ago
You didn't want to be the go-to Y2K guy in 2001. Or the world performance expert in some now obsolete computer architecture.