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In my experience this doesn't seem like an industry evolving towards having more generalists. In fact it is breeding more specialization than ever (what with t
by agentultra 13y ago
In my experience this doesn't seem like an industry evolving towards having more generalists. In fact it is breeding more specialization than ever (what with the unbelievably high enrolment rates in university across the board). Almost every programming job I've interviewed for in the last four years has involved some kind of domain specialization. Perhaps that's just where I am and gravitate towards but with the role of "web developer," being divvied up into "front end developer," "UX designer," "graphic designer," and "backend developer," it does seem to me that specialization, not generalization, is the way we're going.
In other words, it's getting complicated enough that the case of one person being able to do it all is getting more and more rare. Sure you can figure out the gist of the entire stack but in order to deeply understand it to the point where you can push the boundaries of what's possible will require a focus on just one part of it.
- porker 13y ago> but with the role of "web developer," being divvied up into "front end developer," "UX designer," "graphic designer," and "backend developer," it does seem to me that specialization, not generalization, is the way we're going. And yet someone has to 'glue together' the roles and understand what each specialist is doing. I feel that's where I, as a generalist, fit in. It's not Project Management per se, lead developer with oversight for the project? I haven't figured it out yet - I like this role, but it's not hugely hireable :)
- danielweber 13y agoI think it's just crappy hiring practices. In my experience, the team of generalists will almost always beat the team of specialists. But managers like pretending they are assembling the A-Team: there's my UI guy, my DB guy, my master-of-disguise guy, etc.