Skill Stacking: A Practical Strategy to Achieve Career Success • Hacker News Board

Re: Skill Stacking: A Practical Strategy to Achieve Career Success

#21

Post by function_seven » Thu, Nov 08, 2018, 5:24 AM UTC

eloff wrote: post #12

syndacks wrote: post #8

When I rode my bicycle across the USA from LA to NYC I met a dude named Ryan through WarmShowers. Over pizza and beers at a local joint in Tempe, AZ, Ryan told me about this blog called _Semi-Rad_ - "you don't need to be a rockstar in something, you just need to be semi-rad. Semi-rad people have the most fun, they achieve the most, they experience the spice of life. They're not so caught up in perfection, but they st…

Seems like a justification for mediocrity. Yeah, you'll enjoy life more if you're not working 100 hours a week like Elon Musk. But I think you'll be in general better off and happier if you push yourself. I've always worked very hard at my career and it has paid off. I get to do lots of fun things as a result. It was hard in the moment to make the sacrifices, but that's water under the bridge now. Present and future…

It isn't a binary choice between "rockstar" and "mediocrity". There's a huge area between those two: "semi-rad".

That's the point. Learn to recognize when you've achieved a level of skill where you're qualified more than most, and don't have to double your effort and time to get to the pinnacle. The opportunity cost may not be worth it if you can otherwise spend it pursuing other interests.

Re: Skill Stacking: A Practical Strategy to Achieve Career Success

#22

Post by godelmachine » Thu, Nov 08, 2018, 5:33 AM UTC

scarface74 wrote: post #10

jolmg wrote: post #2

It's rare to see arguments in favor of being a generalist over a specialist. In the end, they both have their pros and cons. > You simply have more chance of career success if you have more skills. I think that depends on how one intends to apply those skills. Being a generalist means that you don't depend on any one particular skill to always keep you in demand, and you can do more on your own to do tasks that speci…

I restarted my software development career around 2009 after being at one company too long and after 8 years and 4 job changes, I went from being what for all intents and purposes a junior .Net developer to the dev team lead based solely on knowing the Microsoft stack really well. At the company where I was the dev lead, I first encountered outside consultants who were there to “help” us transform the company and “mo…

That’s interesting, the career steps you took.

May I ask how much is the general pay in those “high paying jobs”?

Re: Skill Stacking: A Practical Strategy to Achieve Career Success

#23

Post by godelmachine » Thu, Nov 08, 2018, 5:41 AM UTC

paultopia wrote: post #9

Those interested in the generalist/specialist debate could do worse than to read Isaiah Berlin's classic essay on the subject, The Hedgehog and the Fox: https://www.blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk/crag/files/2016/06/the_hedgeh...

Do you mean to say it’s a good read or a useless read? Your choice of words confuse me.

Re: Skill Stacking: A Practical Strategy to Achieve Career Success

#24

Post by tandav » Thu, Nov 08, 2018, 5:46 AM UTC

_kxbd wrote: post #19

I don't find these sorts of articles valuable. The template is simple: Write generic advice that sounds nice, and is never controversial. Make sure it's super vague so you don't have to take any accountability for it, you can move the goalposts of what you're saying. If we remove all the filler in this article (more or less the entire article), it amounts to "be okay at multiple things rather than trying to be good a…

so good advice will be: just read technical articles that develop your skills

Re: Skill Stacking: A Practical Strategy to Achieve Career Success

#25

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Nov 08, 2018, 5:50 AM UTC

godelmachine wrote: post #20

nopinsight wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In several fields, people at the top 1% of skill level earn many times those at top 10% and the mediocre ones may barely get by. This phenomenon is spreading because better technologies enable top performers to serve more people. (See: the Superstar effect for the most extreme examples. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Superstar_Effect ) How would the average workers or even ‘semi-rads’ in generally less lucrative…

Power law at work. Very valid question at the end. No one can afford settling at moderate skill levels these days

[deleted]

Re: Skill Stacking: A Practical Strategy to Achieve Career Success

#26

Post by User23 » Thu, Nov 08, 2018, 6:00 AM UTC

_kxbd wrote: post #19

I don't find these sorts of articles valuable. The template is simple: Write generic advice that sounds nice, and is never controversial. Make sure it's super vague so you don't have to take any accountability for it, you can move the goalposts of what you're saying. If we remove all the filler in this article (more or less the entire article), it amounts to "be okay at multiple things rather than trying to be good a…

Also he's just plagiarizing Scott Adams's notion of a "talent stack."

Re: Skill Stacking: A Practical Strategy to Achieve Career Success

#27

Post by SpanishConf » Thu, Nov 08, 2018, 6:01 AM UTC

nopinsight wrote: post #18

syndacks wrote: post #8

When I rode my bicycle across the USA from LA to NYC I met a dude named Ryan through WarmShowers. Over pizza and beers at a local joint in Tempe, AZ, Ryan told me about this blog called _Semi-Rad_ - "you don't need to be a rockstar in something, you just need to be semi-rad. Semi-rad people have the most fun, they achieve the most, they experience the spice of life. They're not so caught up in perfection, but they st…

In several fields, people at the top 1% of skill level earn many times those at top 10% and the mediocre ones may barely get by. This phenomenon is spreading because better technologies enable top performers to serve more people. (See: the Superstar effect for the most extreme examples. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Superstar_Effect ) How would the average workers or even ‘semi-rads’ in generally less lucrative…

Live in Europe

Re: Skill Stacking: A Practical Strategy to Achieve Career Success

#28

Post by User23 » Thu, Nov 08, 2018, 6:02 AM UTC

godelmachine wrote: post #23

paultopia wrote: post #9

Those interested in the generalist/specialist debate could do worse than to read Isaiah Berlin's classic essay on the subject, The Hedgehog and the Fox: https://www.blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk/crag/files/2016/06/the_hedgeh...

Do you mean to say it’s a good read or a useless read? Your choice of words confuse me.

Parent means it is a good read and it is.

Re: Skill Stacking: A Practical Strategy to Achieve Career Success

#29

Post by SpanishConf » Thu, Nov 08, 2018, 6:04 AM UTC

killjoywashere wrote: post #5

jolmg wrote: post #2

It's rare to see arguments in favor of being a generalist over a specialist. In the end, they both have their pros and cons. > You simply have more chance of career success if you have more skills. I think that depends on how one intends to apply those skills. Being a generalist means that you don't depend on any one particular skill to always keep you in demand, and you can do more on your own to do tasks that speci…

Undergrad in physics. 7 years in the military. Medical school, self-taught computing (mainly Unix, web stuff, and python), surgical internship, more programming, residency, more programming. Now medical director of a clinical lab with 40 staff and major research in progress, published, overseeing clinical and research employees across 10 timezones, working across 13 time zones, have briefed to highest levels of gover…

Jesus Fucking Christ. As someone who's 19 years old and struggling with life (see my post history if you want to know more, but it ain't pretty, heh) you've sure done a lot of things and congratulations for you success!

You seem to have an unlimited thirst for knowledge. I envy that at a personal level.

Re: Skill Stacking: A Practical Strategy to Achieve Career Success

#30

Post by indigochill » Thu, Nov 08, 2018, 6:13 AM UTC

jolmg wrote: post #2

It's rare to see arguments in favor of being a generalist over a specialist. In the end, they both have their pros and cons. > You simply have more chance of career success if you have more skills. I think that depends on how one intends to apply those skills. Being a generalist means that you don't depend on any one particular skill to always keep you in demand, and you can do more on your own to do tasks that speci…

I've sort of accidentally jumped all over the place. In high school I excelled in writing but ran calculations at an electrical engineering company. In college (studying journalism/marketing) I helped a startup with ethical stealth social marketing. Then I left college to do tech support at my dream company while completing my degree remotely. Eventually taught myself just enough Python to pivot into a junior fullstack position (and have since had several promotions there).

Now my interest is shifting to low-level computing and I'm getting my MS with a focus on high-performance computing and operating systems, but applying those principles to our cloud initiative (and after my MS is over, I plan to focus on hardware and electrical engineering MOOCs).

Where that'll take me (if anywhere), I have no idea. I occasionally regret not majoring in CS from the start and sometimes I think doubling down on the fullstack thing would be a more stable career move, but it's been a fun, weird ride and I plan to continue following my natural curiosity at least until stability becomes more of a requirement.