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Is jack of all trades used as a negative thing here? That's new for me. Anyway, it'd be a jack of several things, probably. All is a bit hard these days. If s

Is jack of all trades used as a negative thing here? That's new for me. Anyway, it'd be a jack of several things, probably. All is a bit hard these days. If someone can be considered "senior frontend developer" with say four years of experience, and careers span four decades, it should be the norm to be decent at multiple things.

dagw 4y ago
If someone can be considered "senior frontend developer" with say four years of experience, and careers span four decades, it should be the norm to be decent at multiple things. Sure, but skills need to be kept sharp and relevant as well. There was a time in the distant past when I no doubt qualified as a "senior frontend web developer" (although we didn't use that term back then). However A LOT of things have a changed since then and I am out of date on the latest "frontend web develop" techniques and tools. Were I to want to get a job as a frontend web developer today I would no doubt be considered very much a junior.
- wizofaus 4y ago
  There's a big difference between a senior who happens not to have worked on a particular tech stack in recent years and a junior that happens to have got started with that stack. The senior will definitely be able to command a significantly higher salary and within a fairly short period (months if not weeks) should be able to demonstrate that value. There's value in knowing a particular stack inside out for sure, but it doesn't match the general skills and experience you can only gain by having worked as a developer over a decade or so.
darkwater 4y ago
Jack of all trades means that you have a broad spectrum of knowledge but not deep knowledge in a specific field. If you are a very talented individual you can have both broad and deep knowledge. The trick here is that the definitions of "deep" and "broad" vary a lot depending on who you ask to. As stated in other comments, there are people that consider "broad" knowing how to write JS for web pages and a (simple) NodeJS backend and other that think you have a broad knowledge if you know how an eBPF script works in the kernel and also how the V8 engine optimizes your Javascript in the browser, and all the layers in between.

dagw 4y ago

If someone can be considered "senior frontend developer" with say four years of experience, and careers span four decades, it should be the norm to be decent at multiple things. Sure, but skills need to be kept sharp and relevant as well. There was a time in the distant past when I no doubt qualified as a "senior frontend web developer" (although we didn't use that term back then). However A LOT of things have a changed since then and I am out of date on the latest "frontend web develop" techniques and tools. Were I to want to get a job as a frontend web developer today I would no doubt be considered very much a junior.

wizofaus 4y ago
There's a big difference between a senior who happens not to have worked on a particular tech stack in recent years and a junior that happens to have got started with that stack. The senior will definitely be able to command a significantly higher salary and within a fairly short period (months if not weeks) should be able to demonstrate that value. There's value in knowing a particular stack inside out for sure, but it doesn't match the general skills and experience you can only gain by having worked as a developer over a decade or so.

darkwater 4y ago

Jack of all trades means that you have a broad spectrum of knowledge but not deep knowledge in a specific field. If you are a very talented individual you can have both broad and deep knowledge. The trick here is that the definitions of "deep" and "broad" vary a lot depending on who you ask to. As stated in other comments, there are people that consider "broad" knowing how to write JS for web pages and a (simple) NodeJS backend and other that think you have a broad knowledge if you know how an eBPF script works in the kernel and also how the V8 engine optimizes your Javascript in the browser, and all the layers in between.