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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?
#62Pro 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 the past 7ish years, and decided "I'm the frontend WebRTC guy." I identified the spots of knowledge I needed to read up on to be confident (just a few gaps here and there) interviewed at a job, and within 10 minutes into the interview my future (now current) boss said "You're the perfect fit!". Because I was. I'm the frontend WebRTC guy with some sales/marketing experience, and they needed a frontend WebRTC guy with some sales/marketing experience.
Before that, I was the Frontend DevOps guy. Before that, I was the Backbone.js guy. And before that, I was the Sharepoint guy (shhhhh don't tell anyone!)
If you're interested in AI, just go poke around and find something in AI. Don't sweat it. We all got plenty of time, and like you said, as long as we can center divs and set up click tracking on a Wordpress site we'll always be able to put food on the table! :)
Re: Ask HN: Do you regret being a generalist?
#63No, 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 think this is an important point. Generalists are more valuable at smaller companies where everyone has to perform multiple roles. I'm not sure where that stops being true though. I've been in a few startups now and at the 50-100 person mark, I think specialisation starts to become more important.
Re: Ask HN: Do you regret being a generalist?
#64A 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?
It's more relevant than ever.
Re: Ask HN: Do you regret being a generalist?
#65A 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.
You're quoting someone — you should use quote marks and add an attribution.
Re: Ask HN: Do you regret being a generalist?
#66My favorite part about being a generalist is that I get to work with incredibly talented specialists and we tend to complement each other very well.
In some ways I find that I _do_ specialize - just not along a specific field. I tend to specialize to the project. 8-10 years ago, I was building a video rendering project. I got to build the engine prototype (in an early version of node.js!), the UI (early version of react!), the data formats, the databases, the video / audio processing systems, and so on. And when we proved it all worked, we brought on specialists to help improve the UIs and optimize the rendering engine.
At the end of that run, I knew more than I would ever want to know about video file management, video rendering, generating video formats, etc. And once that startup sold, I was able to move on and let all that knowledge sort of fade.
I'm presently "specializing" in a project where we scrape POI data from around the world and combine it in useful ways for locals and travelers. So now I'm working with geo data, reasonably large data sets, merging data from thousands of sources, and I get to dabble in / and learn about ML, while the specialists do the more detailed, more difficult ML work.
That said, I've found it's good to be better than average at some things to keep busy. For me, besides general coding, I'm decent at API-based software architecture, Ops, and planning / maintaining / optimizing Relational Databases.
As for the work - Most projects need both. Someone else on this post mentioned that there can be higher pay for specialists. That's probably true. I've seen it. But generalists can have more stability as industry trends adjust.
Re: Ask HN: Do you regret being a generalist?
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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).
If you're not invading because you can't, you're not good: you're just useless. You need to be able to invade and not do it to be good.
What if you know you /can/ learn how to do that but make a conscious choice not to take on that ability? Then what if you know you can but rank that ability as being too far down the list in terms of its benefit to you, your family, your neighbors and the human race to supplant time spent learning X or doing Y. For whatever you feel are a good values of X & Y?
This more "not invading AND you can't" rather than "because." Seems like a reasonable thing to me.
"I decline to shoot anyone with a gun and I can't." That seems like a position taken by some large number of pretty reasonable people in a many contexts that seem, at the very least, justifiable.
Re: Ask HN: Do you regret being a generalist?
#68Rarely, but yes. Some people simply can't grasp that if you say "Yes, I've done this for 5 years and I've done that for 5 years" that you will indeed be able to fulfill both roles, even if you're maybe not able to give answers that are 100% correct in the details and up to absolute latest standard, but can easily get back into it. (Not fundamentals, just actually "yes, I worked with X, but 3 major versions ago")
This is generally not a problem and many people are actually happy to get someone who has not just seen 15 years of one thing.
The T-shaped thing is a bit of a meme, but I do believe you shouldn't be a complete generalist and not be quite good at some things, so I guess the depth of your one or few specializations is up for debate.
But in summary I don't regret it. I don't want to call it "easily bored" but I can really not imagine myself as still doing the exact same thing as 2001, when I started working, even with the technologies that were around at the time. Sure, even there things change (looking at you, Java and PHP) but still. The only thing I don't recommend is hopping from language to language every 2-3 years, that's simply not enough time to go deep enough.
Re: Ask HN: Do you regret being a generalist?
#69Up until college I thought I would make a great astronaut, but only for the drama of it. Got an English degree. Learned web design. Got a music composition degree. Got my first job in web design because I didn't have the stomach to grind it out for a composition job. Self taught (via the web and the library) on software development, agile, patterns, graphic design, web standards, XML, XHTML, CSS, XPath, XSL, accessibility, JavaScript, PHP, Perl, Java, Mac, Linux (Gentoo! emerge FTW!), WordPress, MySQL (it's "My Ess Cue Ell", btw), screencasting (remember that? Thanks, Camtasia), more architecture, Ruby on Rails (hallelujah, best decision I ever made), PostgreSQL, temporary small business owner, Node.js, cloud, Christopher Alexander, Solution Architecture, Product Management, way too many business and organizational books, Elixir/Phoenix, Common Lisp, and what's next? I still write and play music for fun. I write what feels like endless amounts of communication and essays for work (thank you, Department of Rhetoric). I'm a thought jumper. Always have been. Blessing and a curse, as they say.
Do I envy those who were able to specialize and find fortune, keep their sanity, and look good doing it? Absolutely there are days that I do. But regret being a generalist? Honestly, I think I would go crazy if I tried to force myself to be anything other than.
Re: Ask HN: Do you regret being a generalist?
#70In my experience the T-shaped approach that others have mentioned is a good one for the long term. Become an expert in one thing you enjoy but keep being usefully employable in most areas.
I'm naturally a generalist, I enjoy every and all parts of creating network/computer/OS/userspace systems, their performance, operation and security. But I've also specialized in some areas. As I get older (about double your age) I have held very high level generalist roles, but those start to become few and far between up the corporate ladder. In my more specialized role, very senior opportunities are more common since not so many people seem to specialize.