To me, the most important Q is what is a tech's staying power, is it a skill you can still make a living in years to come. In my experience, general skills that

To me, the most important Q is what is a tech's staying power, is it a skill you can still make a living in years to come. In my experience, general skills that can be applied, win here. e:g In 1992 I learned vi (what vim was at the time basically) and shell (csh on Solaris and HP-UX machines). 29 yrs later these skills are still totally relevant e:g bash on AWS EC2, or inside Dockerfiles. Much of what Microsoft had at the time is unrecognisable now. At the same time I learned lots of niche telecomms, which is no use now. I'd go for depth in general skills, rather than niche, unless you're really sure the niche stuff is here to stay. Perhaps some niche academic science solving real challenges, is worth investing in. The fundamental issue is that so many software skills have a short shelf life, compared to other fields of work, and if we don't watch out we get bitten by that