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In usual business environments, generalists are usually not very valued either, but in indirect ways: it's easier to ask for better conditions if you can boast

In usual business environments, generalists are usually not very valued either, but in indirect ways: it's easier to ask for better conditions if you can boast having unique skills or be strong in a specific niche, and a true "generalist" will be expected to move to a management or facilitator role, which makes them regress their technical abilities to some amount, which in turn pushes them to further move down that career path (or out of the company if they want to regain a technical role). I find it fascinating that the gaming industry is faced with similar issues with generalists, where I was expecting a lot more pragmatic choices and better paths for individual contributors even if they're not ultra specialized.

meheleventyone 3y ago
Internally big game teams are pretty indistinguishable from any other larger tech team in how they operate in the large. There’s quite a bit of cross-pollination between the two as well and the whole is driven by wider business culture anyway. In my experience that ends up in being very process rather than results led which is definitely ends up with some perverse incentives.
pydry 3y ago
Ive noticed this too. A practical side effect is that most bugs in business context seem to emerge in "no man's land" areas of responsibility - e.g. not in the kubernetes system run by the kubernetes expert and not in the backend service built by the backend engineer but due to subtle interactions between the two. Sometimes the intersection point issues are due to a breakdown in communication between the two experts but sometimes its due to a lack of knowledge overlap - i.e. the lack of a generalist on either side of the divide.
johnnyanmac 3y ago
>I find it fascinating that the gaming industry is faced with similar issues with generalists, where I was expecting a lot more pragmatic choices and better paths for individual contributors even if they're not ultra specialized. It's a similar solution to other tech: generalists aren't vauled as much at huge studios, but they thrive in smaller studios. So the "exit plan" for a generalist involves hitting the ground floor early on an up and coming studio and getting a significant stake in a successful release. And like those unicorns, those new studios are a huge risk. But hey, at least these days you have a huge rabid fanbase of hardcore gamers who will foam over each PR release as long as you do some form of advertising.

meheleventyone 3y ago

Internally big game teams are pretty indistinguishable from any other larger tech team in how they operate in the large. There’s quite a bit of cross-pollination between the two as well and the whole is driven by wider business culture anyway. In my experience that ends up in being very process rather than results led which is definitely ends up with some perverse incentives.

pydry 3y ago

Ive noticed this too. A practical side effect is that most bugs in business context seem to emerge in "no man's land" areas of responsibility - e.g. not in the kubernetes system run by the kubernetes expert and not in the backend service built by the backend engineer but due to subtle interactions between the two. Sometimes the intersection point issues are due to a breakdown in communication between the two experts but sometimes its due to a lack of knowledge overlap - i.e. the lack of a generalist on either side of the divide.

johnnyanmac 3y ago

>I find it fascinating that the gaming industry is faced with similar issues with generalists, where I was expecting a lot more pragmatic choices and better paths for individual contributors even if they're not ultra specialized. It's a similar solution to other tech: generalists aren't vauled as much at huge studios, but they thrive in smaller studios. So the "exit plan" for a generalist involves hitting the ground floor early on an up and coming studio and getting a significant stake in a successful release. And like those unicorns, those new studios are a huge risk. But hey, at least these days you have a huge rabid fanbase of hardcore gamers who will foam over each PR release as long as you do some form of advertising.