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Ask HN: Do you regret being a generalist?

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Re: Ask HN: Do you regret being a generalist?

#21

Post by j45 »

The more different things anyone does over time, the more you become a generalist.

It reminds me of a quote where an expert is someone who knows more and more about less and less. That seems true for specialists and generalists.

Generalists can connect dots between unrelated that specialists might not.

Generalists can build and connect many layers.

The chasing of shiny objects slows down once you start seeing how little is actually new.

Serving the solving of problems that make a positive impact for users is important to know what generalists can do that’s very unique. This helps inform what you might want to go deep in vs broad.

For me it was the realization that most software tends to answer one question in many ways: Where is everything at? It became the connector to people and what they were after.

Also during the pandemic, it seemed generalists were able to learn how to learn and contribute some very unique solutions.

The subsequent change in society will require not just specialists who focus on one thing or way.

Generalists roll with the change at both as big picture and in details.

You need both and I don’t think the specialist is better than the generalist, or vice versa.

Re: Ask HN: Do you regret being a generalist?

#22

Post by PainfullyNormal »

paulcole wrote: post #8
eimrine wrote: post #5

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyse a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

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.

Re: Ask HN: Do you regret being a generalist?

#23

Post by mfrw »

eimrine wrote: post #5

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyse a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

Thank you for making me laugh on my more than crappy day :)

> plan an invasion

Why would one need this ? [hahahaha]

Re: Ask HN: Do you regret being a generalist?

#24

Post by djaouen »

No. The only thing I regret along my career path is being officially diagnosed with a mental illness during a hospitalization, which led me to missing work without notice, which caused me to become abruptly unemployed (and, eventually, unemployable). And despite the fact that my career ended abruptly and without warning, I regret nothing else. There is no downside to learning new things, even if they don't have immediate application to your life. Even if they never do. Learning is worthwhile for its own sake (at least in my opinion).

Re: Ask HN: Do you regret being a generalist?

#25

Post by moondev »

chrismarlow9 wrote: post #12

I'm mid thirties, went from full stack dev to DevOps to sre. No real regrets on not specializing in a field, however I do wish I had spent more time contributing to some specific open source project that's heavily used. I think generalist knowledge + in depth knowledge of some widely used codebase would be a bit more lucrative.

I guess there are arguments for both sides, but to me DevOps is specialized. "Full Stack" is more general development.

Re: Ask HN: Do you regret being a generalist?

#26

Post by MarkMarine »

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 all night, do 2 Months of work in a day. When I hate my job, I struggle to create anything, it all feels like work.

Re: Ask HN: Do you regret being a generalist?

#27

Post by atemerev »

mfrw wrote: post #23
eimrine wrote: post #5

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyse a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

Thank you for making me laugh on my more than crappy day :) > plan an invasion Why would one need this ? [hahahaha]

> Why would one need this?

You'll see! :) (seriously though, even if you are not planning any invasions in the foreseeable future, you need to think like an attacker to successfully defend against attackers).

Re: Ask HN: Do you regret being a generalist?

#28

Post by Morgawr »

filmgirlcw wrote: post #13

Yes and no. No, because I think being a generalist has allowed me to offer value and insights that set me apart from others. I like knowing a bit about everything and I think my willingness to learn and explore has worked out really well. On the flipside, before I moved to my current company, I did struggle with promotions at times because I wasn’t seen as a specialist in any one area. The overall value that I saw in…

This has been my experience as well. I have a lot of context on a lot of different things and projects I have been (or still am) involved in. I've been allocated by managers to partner teams to help, I've jumped on a lot of different projects (all super interesting) and that allowed me to build a very diverse portfolio of skills (and more importantly, improve on my ability to "get up to speed" with completely new codebases and projects, which is something a lot of people don't have).

My manager knows that if there's some new project brewing or some specific thing that needs someone to look at, he'll likely ask me to take a look. I enjoy being that "jolly" player in the team when it comes to this stuff, however there are a lot of downsides to it. I've doubted myself a lot (and still do) with impostor syndrome when I see my coworkers do super amazing very technically detailed stuff that I just simply cannot understand. See them whip out extremely specific nuggets of knowledge and very technical reports on stuff that flies waaaay over my head. They are absolute geniuses whereas I feel like I'm just here to "fill a gap" and not much more (I know that's not REALLY it but... the voice at the back of my head tells me otherwise). I've had times in my career where I asked myself "what did I do the last few months?" and the answer was "I have no idea" because I'd be flipflopping around writing a few line changes here and there, not having a codebase that I'd specifically "own" myself, etc. It can be emotionally tough at times.

Still, I enjoy it.

Re: Ask HN: Do you regret being a generalist?

#29

Post by nsxwolf »

djaouen wrote: post #24

No. The only thing I regret along my career path is being officially diagnosed with a mental illness during a hospitalization, which led me to missing work without notice, which caused me to become abruptly unemployed (and, eventually, unemployable). And despite the fact that my career ended abruptly and without warning, I regret nothing else. There is no downside to learning new things, even if they don't have immed…

I am curious about this. Are you a software engineer? Is it your condition that has prevented you from finding employment, or the stigma? Or a gap in your resume?

Re: Ask HN: Do you regret being a generalist?

#30

Post by nbernard »

paulcole wrote: post #8
eimrine wrote: post #5

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyse a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

On the flip side, that’s a 50-year old quote and maybe times have changed?

What do you think of HN's cstross take in his novel _Saturn's Children_ ?

> Please excuse my lack of depth; I'm a generalist, not a specialist.

> Why bother learning all that biochemistry stuff --- or how to design a building, or conn a boat, or balance accounts, or solve equations, or comfort the dying --- when you can get other people to do all that for you in exchange for a blow job?

(to me, it seems to be more a blow job specialist's view than that of an actual generalist, but ...)

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