111–120 of 231 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
On the flip side, that’s a 50-year old quote and maybe times have changed?
Have humans really changed in the last 2000 years? You can still find books today published back during Roman times complaining about kids these days and how they mispronounce latin.
Mispronounced in Latin: "emm an' emm years"
https://australian.museum/learn/science/human-evolution/homo...
No, it makes me more valuable to startups. I’m a 0 to 10 engineer, 10 to 50 is rough, 50 to 90 is boring and 90 to 100 is like watching paint dry for me. If you want to be valuable for the startups that need 0 to 50, you need to wear some different hats. You also need to know yourself. Figure out what you love in this and do that, you’ll never be burned out or bored. When I’m in the right place, I can happily code al…
I know what you mean, but I'd be cautious making such statements. The other way to read this is that when you're in the right place you do one day of work in a day, and when you're in the wrong place, you do 1/40 of a day's work in a day...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Kubernetes Devops guy checking in - this is the way! Also think about it from the company side: Would you rather hire someone that solves your "exact" problem, or the one-man Army that -could- do everything? Which matters to you?
I'd rather hire someone who is effective and passionate about solving problems in a particular space. If I hire a full stack web developer, and then they burn out because I had only frontend tickets for them for half a year, that's not so nice. I don't mind rebranding your LinkedIn to make it look like you're the Kubernetes DevOps guy, as long as that means you're totally fine with working the DevOps for my Kubernete…
This sort of over reasoning is part of what bugs me about this industry.
Many devs change jobs at the drop of a hat, turnover is already high. Yet here you are, worried about job retention, trying to second guess what a dev knows about their own happiness.
I know you mean well, both for the org, and the person, but what makes you think you know, better than the dev, what will stress them out or not?
You aren't them, so just ask, and as long as it is clear they have thought of it, and want to move ahead, you should 100% drop the matter.
Frankly (as if I could be more frank, heh), likely there will be something entirely unrelated which will bug the dev. And all your concerns will be for naught.
Except, of course, you are throwing people's resumes in the trash bin, thus reducing your talent pool, due to unfounded concerns.
I've thought about some of this recently, and while I don't regret being able to jump through the tech stack, or even do a sales call or set up a marketing funnel, there are definitely a few issues that come to mind.
1) If you jump tech stacks you're going to have to spend time getting to know the layout of the neighbourhood. Avoiding jumping across ecosystems will save you time in the long run.
2) You may never truly reach your full potential of really knowing a language if you're constantly jumping back and fourth between many.
3) Some employers will try to pigeonhole you and not take into account your broad array of knowledge (resulting in a lower offer). This may just mean that they're not the right people for you though.
4) Technology is constantly evolving, so you will become out-of-date with technologies you no longer use or use infrequently.
On the flip side:
* You can gain respect of your team and become a "go-to person" for helping them solve their array of issues. This can help give you leverage within a company (e.g. deciding to work part time)
* Having a broad skillset is perfect for starting a company if you are entrepreneurially minded.
* You'll gain mad problem solving skills.
If I were to offer one bit of advice:
Pick one tech stack and be a generalist within that tech stack - and don't let job listings dictate what you will spend your life working on / learning. Choose your work strategically.
can you weld?
Heck no I regret nothing. I can program anything, bring me your dead and I will raise it. Specializing, that's called a job. Work is work and they have a stack you gotta use, better or worse. No one can take the hacker out of the hacker though. My resume in terms of languages basically goes back in time, where I'm "expert" of what I use every day, but what I haven't used for a while I just put "good". How do you sell…
YES! :-( I'm in my 60's. Have worked as a contractor in effectively every field of IT and taught post-grad SE courses at university. I still program in C, Javascript and Python. Can design, build and configure data centers. Know most variants of Unix and its progeny, etc, etc. Yet ... I'm finding it very hard to get contract work post COVID. Recruiters are looking for 3-5 years experience with specific products. I de…
I can't tell, but I suspect this is more likely a problem of ageism rather than generalism here. But maybe beyond a certain age you need to specialise simply in order to compete for positions. Most employers are going to choose a younger more pliable (or cheaper) hire over someone who knows the same stuff but due to lived experience is less tolerant to bullshit.
The one area generalist tend to fall down is ending up as the fix-it person. Moving from one fire to the next, building up a lot of system specific knowledge that isn't transferable. Don't end up the fix-it person.
Find the highest value capability and build it simply. Then do that again. The simply part is super important if you're always interested in 10 things at once. And always trying to code yourself out of a job.
If you want to do AI, just do a couple side projects with it.
Pro tip: you're not a generalist. A big chunk of specializing is how you package/market yourself. I consider myself a "full stack employee". I've done backend, frontend, hosted live events, some sales, marketing, a dash of HR, pretty much everything. Do I write that on my LinkedIn? Heck no. A year or so ago I looked at all the experience I had, saw I had a through-line story of how I've worked on video projects over…