6 ms·

How to specialize after a career as a generalist?

• sposeray 4y ago
  [dead]
• readonthegoapp 4y ago
  conjecturing here... i would think part of it would be -- just pick something? then... try to get a job doing that something. or train until you can get a job doing that something. that said, if you're wanting to potentially keep being a generalist, and only thinking about specializing because you can't find a new gig as a generalist, i would suspect there are a billion jobs out there for what you do -- devops -- contracts, full time, etc. maybe i'm not getting what your background really is, etc.
  • throwitaway_ 4y ago
    Interesting. My background is actually Electrical and Computer Engineering. However, I technically have a CS degree in there, so I can do _some_ programming (been a while since any _real_ programming). My work-background is basically all IT work. I spent a few years as a manager of an IT team, but apart from that, Linux server builds, automation, standing up services, planning and building small data centers (e.g. less than 100 racks), networking, virtualization, scripting. I have built a few openstack on prem clouds with 5-7 servers (manually). Getting specs on and building out desktops, workstations, GPU boxes.I have a pretty good amount of experience with on-prem wiring, worked for an electrician at one point, so I know theory/hands on, which helps a lot in the data center. Eh, that is about it, really.
    • dev_0 4y ago
      IT team need to be a generalist. Maybe upskill yourself to management by becoming the COO of the IT team
    • readonthegoapp 4y ago
      my devops friend says your bg can def do his job -- sr devops role -- site reliability -- whatever label -- according to him, success in the role is mostly about hard work / caring, as opposed to specific skills -- much of which you just need to pick up along the way -- whether it's cloud-specific, or company-infra-specific, etc.
    • jones1618 4y ago
      Look for startup positions. In my experience, while startups are in growth mode they need people who can pitch-in and do whatever is required. Your many skills would suit that kind of environment well. Once in, maybe you could pivot to specializing in managing DevOps where your building & configuring skills could be applied to streamlining the org's development pipeline.
• sharadov 4y ago
  All sysadmins have transitioned to Devops/SRE roles, given your background, you will be able to pick that up pretty easily. Everything that you previously did on-prem has transitioned to the cloud. The fundamentals remain the same - only the tooling has changed. https://www.gremlin.com/site-reliability-engineering/how-to-become-a-top-notch-sre/ https://www.gremlin.com/site-reliability-engineering/how-to-...
  • throwitaway_ 4y ago
    >> you will be able to pick that up pretty easily. I think I was discouraged from DevOPS as my friends that were doing it were hardcore programming... building software all day. I mean, not that I never build software, but they were building huge frameworks for things, and when we hung out and chatted, it sure seemed like pure software engineering and not devops like I thought of it (that is, sysadmin with a lot of automation).
    • testTED 4y ago
      That is not most devops roles.
• bckygldstn 4y ago
  The great thing about a long generalist career history is that you can extract highly specialised threads for different applications by highlighting different parts of your experience. I'm personally a generalist in the web and data science areas, but I do specialised consulting under a number of different "personas": Django web development, geospatial data analysis, non-deep data science, SaaS MVP backend web dev, etc. For each specialisation I have a different resume and "tell me a bit about yourself" pitch, often referring to the same projects but highlighting different aspects of my skills. When someone says they need a specialist they just want someone who can get their stuff done. Having additional skills isn't a detriment as long as you can do the work, just no need to bring them up in your application. I always thought that eventually I'd settle into a specialisation as I mastered narrow niches and got referrals within a specialisation. But that hasn't naturally happened, and I'm very happy as a generalist working specialised roles in a wide range of domains.
  • sharadov 4y ago
    It's hard to keep up with niches - but more power to you if you can keep up, definitely keeps your day-day interesting. I am a data guy - and hoping to move into consulting in a few years.
• toast0 4y ago
  I would look at less general listings in areas that you're decent at, and go from there. I've tended to be hired for specific things, and then something breaks that nobody knows how to fix, and I pick it up, and pretty soon I'm back in the generalist "fixer" role that's needed but rarely hired for. Just don't make my mistake and mention experience in things you don't want to do anymore. Guess who got to take over the mail servers because nobody else knew enough to do it; and guess who's never going to mention experience with mail in a hiring process again. :D
• codegeek 4y ago
  Join a small company or startup where they don't have dedicated Sysadmin/server/devops people. Now you could do it all for them.
  • throwitaway_ 4y ago
    Sounds good, need to be on the lookout.
• deleted 4y ago
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