4 ms·

"It's better to be decent in a lot of areas than to be great in one area and terrible in another." - I disagree with this more the older I get.

B-Con 5y ago
In today's world, almost all jobs are moving more and more toward specialization. Being great at something is how you work and make a difference. You can outsource many of your weaknesses, from the mundane (ex, spelling: spellcheckers) to the complex (ex, accounting: hire an accountant). In contrast, my mental model is that it is only worth knowing a little or a lot. The middle ground is only useful when you are filling a gap. * If you know a little, you know enough to reason about the topic and identify how you can outsource your needs. eg, you know enough about accounting to pick and manage an accountant. * If you know a lot, that's your value add and you can provide that service. Where if if you know a "medium amount"... * you still need to outsource to an expert most of the time * or you can't find the right set of expertise to outsource to and you must fill the gap yourself.
- Kaibeezy 5y ago
  My experience is the exact opposite. As a well-educated generalist, I’ve been able to drop into a number of different fields and find great opportunities. By gaining “medium” competence in multiple areas, I have repeatedly been the only person in town who could bring three or four competencies together for a task. I think one of the most obvious ways “jobs are moving” is towards self-sufficiency and small, flexible teams that can jump into new and rapidly changing situations. Generalists wanted!
  - Jensson 5y ago
    And how much does that pay? Being a generalist typically doesn't pay unless you do it as a manager. Compare that to a specialist in some domain in software engineering who make $500k a year. Companies looking for generalists tend to not pay a lot, they do it so they can hire fewer people and save money, paying a lot would go against that.
    - Kaibeezy 5y ago
      Mostly OK. I’ve done solo consulting and started up a few things. It’s never been about maximizing income, which always seemed to have too steep a price for my taste, rather about personal freedom and flexibility. My early observation was that if you have a particularly valuable skill, you can easily find yourself on the clock in 6-minute increments and/or under someone else’s thumb. As an inventor/promoter or solo consultant (entrepreneur, I guess) it’s possible to find a sweet spot where the money is enough and the pressure is minimized. I suppose a specialist could do that too, with help from an agent.
    - warble 5y ago
      As an engineering generalist I have more opportunity and get paid better than most.
  - warble 5y ago
    Agreed - being a specialist in my experience is far too limiting. I'm pretty good in a more than a few things, and have passing experience in a lot more. I can always find good paying work that interests me.
- starky 5y ago
  I would argue most jobs are moving to be more generalist. The jobs where you need a deep knowledge of a singular topic to push human knowledge are quite rare (especially in a fast moving industry like tech). Rather it is more common to be expected to be able to respond to a large variety of scenarios and be able to provide an acceptable solutions to be able to move on with the project. Most problems don't require the deep understanding, just the smart application of current knowledge and someone who knows where to start.
  - MonaroVXR 5y ago
    I would disagree and the deep knowledge is "non-existent" in this part of my life. But I don't have any statistics or anything else to back this up.
- archsurface 5y ago
  I think it depends on the job - the more advanced, sophisticated, the more specialisation; the less advanced, the more generalisation eg the neurosurgeon doesn't get asked to also do heart surgery - the barrier to jump from one to the other is too high, unlike painting a shed, cleaning a pool, mowing grass, carrying furniture. Tech has kernel and compiler experts who I think generally do little else, vs devops who are more generalist, have a more superficial knowledge of numerous technologies which often change. As I get older I feel my value as a generalist decreases when I look at the incredible depth of knowledge specialists have accrued over the years, and my knowledge is a year old and soon to expire - the eternal newbie, a dabbler, a dilettante. There's is some element of lack of identity in that, but it's too late at night to play Freud. This wasn't a bother when I was younger, and as sibling comments say generalists are in need, but I think that's mostly only in certain areas such as devops, sre, some dev. Personally, I'd rather be an expert, alas I'm not. I wonder if there's a connection to moving into management - with age, generalists are less able to jump around to new tech, so move into management? You certainly seem correct when looking at other roles such as AI, or data scientist - I worked alongside a computer vision, AR chap, and there was no way I was going to be jumping into that to help out. As technologies advance, there will be some abstraction, but increasing depth will require more specialists.
lljk_kennedy 5y ago
https://fs.blog/multiplicative-systems/ https://fs.blog/multiplicative-systems/ is a compelling view on this.
- rolisz 5y ago
  But that's more like saying don't suck completely at anything, not necessarily be decent at all the things.
behnamoh 5y ago
Me too. I feel like part of my identity depends on the things that I'm really good at. At the end of the day, I can safely tell myself I'm the best damn expert in my field and that's enough to give me peace of mind.
sigotirandolas 5y ago
It's certainly not a one-size-fits-all kind of model, and there are indeed a lot of cases where being really good at one thing makes the difference. What I'm suggesting is not that you should simultaneously learn to program, do accounting, lay bricks and repair shoes - but rather let's say that if you are a programmer, you should not only be good at backend programming, but also know a decent bit about frontend programming, server ops and team communications, and not be terrible at UI design, spreadsheets, and customer communications. And there's nothing wrong with being a specialist - but I find that generally good teams need at least someone that can bridge across areas, even if that's not you. Also, it's often easy or natural enough to not be terrible at something that you may not realize how bad things could be.
mclightning 5y ago
I am here with you on this one. I have been a programmer since I was 13, that made me a generalist developer who likes to jump into many different things, because building stuff was my "toy", my entertainment. And every toy gets old. I am almost 30 now. I feel it gets tougher to be a generalist as any industry matures. Take Frontend / Backend development, versus Web Developer of the past. Frontend Development alone has become more complicated than the total mental load a Web Developer would endure delivering both backend and frontend. In that moment, as a generalist, as suggested above, you find yourself without a foundation, but rather crumbling ground. You better know how to fly.
- warble 5y ago
  If the job is too big for one person, then yeah you probably break out into more specialized teams, but I don't see frontend/backend being too much for one person to understand and do good work on. Some systems are just too big for one person to make meaningful progress towards in a reasonable amount of time.

B-Con 5y ago

In today's world, almost all jobs are moving more and more toward specialization. Being great at something is how you work and make a difference. You can outsource many of your weaknesses, from the mundane (ex, spelling: spellcheckers) to the complex (ex, accounting: hire an accountant). In contrast, my mental model is that it is only worth knowing a little or a lot. The middle ground is only useful when you are filling a gap. * If you know a little, you know enough to reason about the topic and identify how you can outsource your needs. eg, you know enough about accounting to pick and manage an accountant. * If you know a lot, that's your value add and you can provide that service. Where if if you know a "medium amount"... * you still need to outsource to an expert most of the time * or you can't find the right set of expertise to outsource to and you must fill the gap yourself.

Kaibeezy 5y ago
My experience is the exact opposite. As a well-educated generalist, I’ve been able to drop into a number of different fields and find great opportunities. By gaining “medium” competence in multiple areas, I have repeatedly been the only person in town who could bring three or four competencies together for a task. I think one of the most obvious ways “jobs are moving” is towards self-sufficiency and small, flexible teams that can jump into new and rapidly changing situations. Generalists wanted!
- Jensson 5y ago
  And how much does that pay? Being a generalist typically doesn't pay unless you do it as a manager. Compare that to a specialist in some domain in software engineering who make $500k a year. Companies looking for generalists tend to not pay a lot, they do it so they can hire fewer people and save money, paying a lot would go against that.
  - Kaibeezy 5y ago
    Mostly OK. I’ve done solo consulting and started up a few things. It’s never been about maximizing income, which always seemed to have too steep a price for my taste, rather about personal freedom and flexibility. My early observation was that if you have a particularly valuable skill, you can easily find yourself on the clock in 6-minute increments and/or under someone else’s thumb. As an inventor/promoter or solo consultant (entrepreneur, I guess) it’s possible to find a sweet spot where the money is enough and the pressure is minimized. I suppose a specialist could do that too, with help from an agent.
  - warble 5y ago
    As an engineering generalist I have more opportunity and get paid better than most.
- warble 5y ago
  Agreed - being a specialist in my experience is far too limiting. I'm pretty good in a more than a few things, and have passing experience in a lot more. I can always find good paying work that interests me.
starky 5y ago
I would argue most jobs are moving to be more generalist. The jobs where you need a deep knowledge of a singular topic to push human knowledge are quite rare (especially in a fast moving industry like tech). Rather it is more common to be expected to be able to respond to a large variety of scenarios and be able to provide an acceptable solutions to be able to move on with the project. Most problems don't require the deep understanding, just the smart application of current knowledge and someone who knows where to start.
- MonaroVXR 5y ago
  I would disagree and the deep knowledge is "non-existent" in this part of my life. But I don't have any statistics or anything else to back this up.
archsurface 5y ago
I think it depends on the job - the more advanced, sophisticated, the more specialisation; the less advanced, the more generalisation eg the neurosurgeon doesn't get asked to also do heart surgery - the barrier to jump from one to the other is too high, unlike painting a shed, cleaning a pool, mowing grass, carrying furniture. Tech has kernel and compiler experts who I think generally do little else, vs devops who are more generalist, have a more superficial knowledge of numerous technologies which often change. As I get older I feel my value as a generalist decreases when I look at the incredible depth of knowledge specialists have accrued over the years, and my knowledge is a year old and soon to expire - the eternal newbie, a dabbler, a dilettante. There's is some element of lack of identity in that, but it's too late at night to play Freud. This wasn't a bother when I was younger, and as sibling comments say generalists are in need, but I think that's mostly only in certain areas such as devops, sre, some dev. Personally, I'd rather be an expert, alas I'm not. I wonder if there's a connection to moving into management - with age, generalists are less able to jump around to new tech, so move into management? You certainly seem correct when looking at other roles such as AI, or data scientist - I worked alongside a computer vision, AR chap, and there was no way I was going to be jumping into that to help out. As technologies advance, there will be some abstraction, but increasing depth will require more specialists.

lljk_kennedy 5y ago

https://fs.blog/multiplicative-systems/ https://fs.blog/multiplicative-systems/ is a compelling view on this.

rolisz 5y ago
But that's more like saying don't suck completely at anything, not necessarily be decent at all the things.

behnamoh 5y ago

Me too. I feel like part of my identity depends on the things that I'm really good at. At the end of the day, I can safely tell myself I'm the best damn expert in my field and that's enough to give me peace of mind.

sigotirandolas 5y ago

It's certainly not a one-size-fits-all kind of model, and there are indeed a lot of cases where being really good at one thing makes the difference. What I'm suggesting is not that you should simultaneously learn to program, do accounting, lay bricks and repair shoes - but rather let's say that if you are a programmer, you should not only be good at backend programming, but also know a decent bit about frontend programming, server ops and team communications, and not be terrible at UI design, spreadsheets, and customer communications. And there's nothing wrong with being a specialist - but I find that generally good teams need at least someone that can bridge across areas, even if that's not you. Also, it's often easy or natural enough to not be terrible at something that you may not realize how bad things could be.

mclightning 5y ago

I am here with you on this one. I have been a programmer since I was 13, that made me a generalist developer who likes to jump into many different things, because building stuff was my "toy", my entertainment. And every toy gets old. I am almost 30 now. I feel it gets tougher to be a generalist as any industry matures. Take Frontend / Backend development, versus Web Developer of the past. Frontend Development alone has become more complicated than the total mental load a Web Developer would endure delivering both backend and frontend. In that moment, as a generalist, as suggested above, you find yourself without a foundation, but rather crumbling ground. You better know how to fly.

warble 5y ago
If the job is too big for one person, then yeah you probably break out into more specialized teams, but I don't see frontend/backend being too much for one person to understand and do good work on. Some systems are just too big for one person to make meaningful progress towards in a reasonable amount of time.