T-shaped is the way to go. Go wide in a broad swath of disciplines and skills, especially with the ability to combine them and collaborate in them (i.e understa

T-shaped is the way to go. Go wide in a broad swath of disciplines and skills, especially with the ability to combine them and collaborate in them (i.e understanding design and sales as well as technology, and being able to work well with designers, marketing people as well as with other programmers), go deep and narrow in one or two subfields in which you are a specialist. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-shaped_skills http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-shaped_skills My favourite people to work with are all T-shaped in one way or another. I learnt programming on the job after having worked in media and the art world, and having (not very successfully, but to great personal learning) ran a small company, so I'd like to think I'm versatile that way.