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Here's a question: for a decent frontend developer who's still far away from the "master" level he describes here, is it worth chasing mastery or might it be be

by IsaacL 13y ago

Here's a question: for a decent frontend developer who's still far away from the "master" level he describes here, is it worth chasing mastery or might it be better to branch out to other skills, like management? I think I'm a solid frontend developer, but I'm a few years professional experience away from the level he describes here. I know my way around HTML, CSS and the various browser quirks - though I'm still learning the idiosyncrasies he describes here. I've written a ~10000-line app in Angular.js, but my Javascript code is still sloppy, and is nowhere close to my knowledge of Ruby. I'm gradually picking up the basics of design and UI as I go, but that's a whole other mountain which I could climb for years. "That guy I offered that car to (not really) took a job at a startup and he’s the guy. He’s THE front end developer for their product which doesn’t exist yet. He gets to point to that thing, a year or two from now when it’s worth a bazillion dollars (I do wish him luck, after all) and say, “I did that.” There are people out there, right now, who get to point at Twitter, Facebook, Gmail and Google Maps, at the Iphone’s UI, at Github, at the YouTube player – stuff used by millions upon millions of people – and say, “I did that.”" Thing is, few products are built by one superhero. I'm wondering if, rather than transform yourself into a magical-unicorn designer/hacker - it might be better to get solid at development, solid at design, but aim to only get good enough that you can manage people who are better at you in those areas?

jt2190 13y ago
> I'm wondering if, rather than transform yourself into a > magical-unicorn designer/hacker - it might be better to > get solid at development, solid at design, but aim to > only get good enough that you can manage people who are > better at you in those areas? Depends on your definition of "better". The market clearly treats the three skills (dev, design, management) as separate things, so really you don't even need to be "solid" in more than one if you define "better" as "above average salary". If you define "better" as "can move the project forward without finding another person to help", then becoming a "superhero" is what you should do. Note that "we're still figuring out what this product is" stage startups really hope to find these "superhero" types, as they can litterally breathe life into a product by themselves. Larger companies can't depend on hiring people with all skill sets, as they're too rare.
anutron 13y ago
note: I'm the author of the article here. I'd say rather than chase after things for their perceived value, do what you love. A lot of that esoteric knowledge is just the byproduct of doing what you like to do for years on end. If you like what you're doing now, keep doing it, get better, learn more. As for few products being built around one superhero, that's absolutely true. But it's often the case that when products get created, there's only one UI developer at the start. In the article, the guy I'm referring to was one of the first developers at simple.com - how cool is that?

by IsaacL 13y ago

jt2190 13y ago

> I'm wondering if, rather than transform yourself into a > magical-unicorn designer/hacker - it might be better to > get solid at development, solid at design, but aim to > only get good enough that you can manage people who are > better at you in those areas? Depends on your definition of "better". The market clearly treats the three skills (dev, design, management) as separate things, so really you don't even need to be "solid" in more than one if you define "better" as "above average salary". If you define "better" as "can move the project forward without finding another person to help", then becoming a "superhero" is what you should do. Note that "we're still figuring out what this product is" stage startups really hope to find these "superhero" types, as they can litterally breathe life into a product by themselves. Larger companies can't depend on hiring people with all skill sets, as they're too rare.

anutron 13y ago

note: I'm the author of the article here. I'd say rather than chase after things for their perceived value, do what you love. A lot of that esoteric knowledge is just the byproduct of doing what you like to do for years on end. If you like what you're doing now, keep doing it, get better, learn more. As for few products being built around one superhero, that's absolutely true. But it's often the case that when products get created, there's only one UI developer at the start. In the article, the guy I'm referring to was one of the first developers at simple.com - how cool is that?