4 ms·

Why are people so obsessed with hyper specializing in software development? Labeling yourself a react dev or rails dev or flutter dev or whatever is only going

Why are people so obsessed with hyper specializing in software development? Labeling yourself a react dev or rails dev or flutter dev or whatever is only going to limit your growth and options. Your career will outlive many tech stacks. Tech changes quickly. Never stop learning.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
pragmatic 3y ago
Because recruiters. The person with one year of experience selling cellphones who now does the phone screen needs to see the exact tech listed on a resume or they pass.
- the_only_law 3y ago
  Or they just edit your resume without your consent and confuse everyone in the interview. I’ve had that happen a few times.
- sph 3y ago
  It is frightening to internalise that the entire job hunting circus depends on failed salespeople with no actual knowledge of the matter at hand.
  - pjmlp 3y ago
    Many recruiters are good at their job, however there are those that want to maximize their sales and don't really understand any tech, so if the customer is looking for XYZ Developer that is what they filter on.
lucasyvas 3y ago
Some companies hire this way which always seemed stupid to me, but I agree with you.
the_only_law 3y ago
Because once the market goes belly up, being a generalist seems to be a death sentence. One thing I noticed having been on the job search for about a year now, is the amount of jobs looking for a specialist, whether that be in a particular domain, or technology. Often very obscure or “obsolete” stuff. I remember applying to a government job, and in their little checklist application, one of the questions was basically “do you have experience writing software for [hyper specific domain]”. Of course, it was the only question on there I couldn’t answer “yes” to. Low and behold I was rejected for that reason. Not sure how they’re going to fare finding someone so unique at the price they’re paying. I’m frankly ready to leave the industry, but unfortunately, there’s not really any other good options for me at this point.
- somsak2 3y ago
  The trick with these kinds of questions is to take a page from a politician's book and not answer it directly if you feel like you'd have to say "no". "I built X system in [somewhat adjacent domain]", "[hyper specific domain] is a subset of my work in [more general domain]" etc.
  - the_only_law 3y ago
    Unfortunately, it was just a series of yes/no radio buttons. Not much room for nuance or spinning.
- coffeebeqn 3y ago
  We must be looking at different levels or roles or something. Most job postings I see say something like Must have experience in “x, y, z or other modern language”. Maybe extreme specialization is more common in front end ?
  - the_only_law 3y ago
    I’ve seen roles like that as well, but much less than I used to. I see them more on entry level roles. I’ve never worked frontend and I’ve barely been full stack for several years now. Most of my experience is in .NET stuff, and usually C# is not the “ “x, y, or z”. Usually it’s something along the lines of “Java, Go, Python”. Not that I haven’t ever worked in those languages, but certainly not recently.
boruto 3y ago
I did mostly work on python and Java. Whenever I apply for positions using golang they stop my application process after learning I don't have work experience in the language. May be this doesn't happen in FAANGS but I see it is the usual thing around.
johnnyanmac 3y ago
IDK about specific software, but I'd love to be a domain expert one day. Key is to grow in something that is always growing. Being "the Network guy" is a lot more promising than being "The Ruby guy". At the same time, there is definitely some grandeur in top companies in being "the C++ guy". Or The COBOL guy: https://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~uoi/Jokes/Cobol.html https://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~uoi/Jokes/Cobol.html
tester756 3y ago
Because that's fastest way to high salaries. And I'm saying this as somebody who worked across a lot of tech stack levels from writing c# backends + even c# webassembly running in browser (high level), to some dekstop, to background workers / cli tools, to having my own OSS lib, to compilers (using llvm), to uefi / firmware C development. Sure, it is interesting to work across all those levels, you get a lot of understanding how things are connected or you're just aware of how this work, but very often this is just shallow knowledge. Strong knowledge and experience requires time. If you switch, then you ain't gonna learn. When trying to find a job there's almost never such a overlap which requires those.
SamuelAdams 3y ago
One of my favourite articles on this topic, by patio11: https://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-programmer/ https://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-pr... > You are not defined by your chosen software stack: I recently asked via Twitter what young engineers wanted to know about careers. Many asked how to know what programming language or stack to study. It doesn’t matter. There you go. > Do Java programmers make more money than .NET programmers? Anyone describing themselves as either a Java programmer or .NET programmer has already lost, because a) they’re a programmer (you’re not, see above) and b) they’re making themselves non-hireable for most programming jobs. In the real world, picking up a new language takes a few weeks of effort and after 6 to 12 months nobody will ever notice you haven’t been doing that one for your entire career.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

pragmatic 3y ago

Because recruiters. The person with one year of experience selling cellphones who now does the phone screen needs to see the exact tech listed on a resume or they pass.

the_only_law 3y ago
Or they just edit your resume without your consent and confuse everyone in the interview. I’ve had that happen a few times.
sph 3y ago
It is frightening to internalise that the entire job hunting circus depends on failed salespeople with no actual knowledge of the matter at hand.
- pjmlp 3y ago
  Many recruiters are good at their job, however there are those that want to maximize their sales and don't really understand any tech, so if the customer is looking for XYZ Developer that is what they filter on.

lucasyvas 3y ago

Some companies hire this way which always seemed stupid to me, but I agree with you.

the_only_law 3y ago

Because once the market goes belly up, being a generalist seems to be a death sentence. One thing I noticed having been on the job search for about a year now, is the amount of jobs looking for a specialist, whether that be in a particular domain, or technology. Often very obscure or “obsolete” stuff. I remember applying to a government job, and in their little checklist application, one of the questions was basically “do you have experience writing software for [hyper specific domain]”. Of course, it was the only question on there I couldn’t answer “yes” to. Low and behold I was rejected for that reason. Not sure how they’re going to fare finding someone so unique at the price they’re paying. I’m frankly ready to leave the industry, but unfortunately, there’s not really any other good options for me at this point.

somsak2 3y ago
The trick with these kinds of questions is to take a page from a politician's book and not answer it directly if you feel like you'd have to say "no". "I built X system in [somewhat adjacent domain]", "[hyper specific domain] is a subset of my work in [more general domain]" etc.
- the_only_law 3y ago
  Unfortunately, it was just a series of yes/no radio buttons. Not much room for nuance or spinning.
coffeebeqn 3y ago
We must be looking at different levels or roles or something. Most job postings I see say something like Must have experience in “x, y, z or other modern language”. Maybe extreme specialization is more common in front end ?
- the_only_law 3y ago
  I’ve seen roles like that as well, but much less than I used to. I see them more on entry level roles. I’ve never worked frontend and I’ve barely been full stack for several years now. Most of my experience is in .NET stuff, and usually C# is not the “ “x, y, or z”. Usually it’s something along the lines of “Java, Go, Python”. Not that I haven’t ever worked in those languages, but certainly not recently.

boruto 3y ago

I did mostly work on python and Java. Whenever I apply for positions using golang they stop my application process after learning I don't have work experience in the language. May be this doesn't happen in FAANGS but I see it is the usual thing around.

johnnyanmac 3y ago

IDK about specific software, but I'd love to be a domain expert one day. Key is to grow in something that is always growing. Being "the Network guy" is a lot more promising than being "The Ruby guy". At the same time, there is definitely some grandeur in top companies in being "the C++ guy". Or The COBOL guy: https://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~uoi/Jokes/Cobol.html https://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~uoi/Jokes/Cobol.html

tester756 3y ago

Because that's fastest way to high salaries. And I'm saying this as somebody who worked across a lot of tech stack levels from writing c# backends + even c# webassembly running in browser (high level), to some dekstop, to background workers / cli tools, to having my own OSS lib, to compilers (using llvm), to uefi / firmware C development. Sure, it is interesting to work across all those levels, you get a lot of understanding how things are connected or you're just aware of how this work, but very often this is just shallow knowledge. Strong knowledge and experience requires time. If you switch, then you ain't gonna learn. When trying to find a job there's almost never such a overlap which requires those.

SamuelAdams 3y ago

One of my favourite articles on this topic, by patio11: https://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-programmer/ https://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-pr... > You are not defined by your chosen software stack: I recently asked via Twitter what young engineers wanted to know about careers. Many asked how to know what programming language or stack to study. It doesn’t matter. There you go. > Do Java programmers make more money than .NET programmers? Anyone describing themselves as either a Java programmer or .NET programmer has already lost, because a) they’re a programmer (you’re not, see above) and b) they’re making themselves non-hireable for most programming jobs. In the real world, picking up a new language takes a few weeks of effort and after 6 to 12 months nobody will ever notice you haven’t been doing that one for your entire career.