My modus operandi is to observe everything going on around me and slowly acquire an encyclopedic knowledge of my environment. That's the one thing I'm really good at, and how I market myself is by telling stories about how I've jumped in to an unfamiliar field, learned about it, and made an impact.
Ask HN: Do you regret being a generalist?
141–150 of 231 posts
Re: Ask HN: Do you regret being a generalist?
#142A 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.
All that and now I have to learn k8s! Grrrrrr!
Re: Ask HN: Do you regret being a generalist?
#143Earlier 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?
> Would you rather hire someone that solves your "exact" problem, or the one-man Army that -could- do everything? Which matters to you? Well . . . people always assume they have the answers, so they've designed an exact position to do what they think they need. But if they need it and can't fulfill the need themselves, they probably don't know what they need. The company, composed of vain people, is more likely to hi…
In my opinion it's okay to not be able to pinpoint the exact problem, thats what I tried to imply by using the quotations.
This is why I position myself as Consultant and Engineer, because you will know you have a problem with your cluster, and I should know how to solve it.
When you are at the point, where your question is: "I need someone to fix my internal ingress-controller because traefik binds all services to the public one", you might simply need to open an issue with the developers of traefik.
Yet if your problem is: "we would like to completly separate internal traffic from external traffic inside our own datacenter", you are looking for the kubernetes devops guy with the neccesairy experience.
Re: Ask HN: Do you regret being a generalist?
#144YES! :-( 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.
Ageism could be a factor, but no recruiter will ever say it point blank. As for becoming BS intolerant, I see that with my cohort who are still working in IT.
Looking back at my work experience, becoming a generalist happened by being serially a specialist.
Re: Ask HN: Do you regret being a generalist?
#145A 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.
- Robert Heinlein
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Re: Ask HN: Do you regret being a generalist?
#146I actually regret being a specialist.
For the past couple years, I focused on my Python and Django skills but now I can't find any decent work for these technologies since every Python work now moved to AI and Machine Learning.
I wish I had continued building PHP and Wordpress stuff as well as dig into new fields like machine learning. I also started in tech as a penetration tester but forgot about everything I learned while focusing on Django development.
Being a specialist is also boring and makes you stupid. You're like an ostrich with its head buried in the sand. When I started digging into new technologies, I realized how much I didn't know and how far the world has moved on.
Lately, I've been remedying this situation by learning new programming languages, reading more books, and attempting projects to test my new skills.
Never specializing ever again.
Re: Ask HN: Do you regret being a generalist?
#147Somewhat opposing view here. I'm not a generalist and haven't spent much time trying to be one, outside of some freelance work where I just said "sure, I can definitely build that" to whatever the ask was.
Specialisation lets you spend time looking into computer science research instead of into solving today's business or tech stack problem. I don't know how to handle dependencies in npm or the details of what changes across python releases. I have read a lot of papers and spend a lot of time experimenting.
I remember being concerned around one of the job moves that I was becoming very specialised and may struggle to find work outside of my area. That's definitely a hazard but I figure I'll deal with that by retiring.
Re: Ask HN: Do you regret being a generalist?
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
The idea that you can't be great at very different things isn't confined to software engineering. I think it's because most people can only master one thing so they can't imagine other people working differently
To be perfectly fair though even “mastering” backend is quite close to impossible. You’ve probably heard of the 10,000 hour rule, it’s a hard and fast rule to say that it takes roughly 10,000 hours of doing something to fully master it. Maybe not true in all cases; but consider the suite of tools you have to be practicing every day to do even a single role: VCS/DVCS, shell, OS fundamentals, build-systems, networking,…
Fist, the 10,000 hour rule is false common knowledge [1,2].
Second, splitting a general role ("backend engineering") in arbitrary atomic skills doesn't make sense because there's no end to it. Backend engineering -> OS fundamentals -> Driver programming -> Hardware design -> Boolean logic -> Set theory -> and so on...
Third, all engineering roles have cross-cutting concerns. You do need some network knowledge to be a "backend guy"... but also to be a sysadmin, devops, etc.. It's not like all these roles exist in a vacuum and you're starting from 0 if you switch between them.
Finally, most people that think of themselves as experts in some role, language or framework end up in the "1 year of experience repeated 10 times" trap. True experts are also somewhat generalists too, because you can't built a tall knowledge without growing the base too (pun intended).
[1] https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20121114-gladwells-10000-...
Re: Ask HN: Do you regret being a generalist?
#149I see lots of happy generalists here. How do you find a job though? I've rarely seen a job ad looking for generalists. All job posts look for something engineer. When you're not something engineer, how do you find a suitable job?
The same as everyone else really...
The trick is though to tailor your CV for the position you're applying for.
I'll research everything I can about the company and the people interviewing me, I'll look up common interview questions for the technology they use and spend WAY more time on any coding exercises than what they suggest making sure that it's well structured, tested and easy to extend in the follow up in-person interview.
If it's a tech I haven't used much of, I'll be honest about it and they'll generally be impressed that I know as much as I do even though I'm new to the tech.
Re: Ask HN: Do you regret being a generalist?
#150Earlier 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'm a generalist and I've had a bunch of DevOps jobs where I had to come in to fix what the complete mess the kubernetes devops specialist left behind. I think the question is more who a generalist markets to. Some people have multiple resume's depending on what they apply for, they come in through one angle and then build some trust and take over more. Or it's a startup that needs help, but doesn't really know what…
Absolutely true, but those are two different things.
I -AM- a generalist and it's also a requirment for being actually any good in devops, but I position myself as Freelance Sr. Engineer with Kubernetes / DevOps / Golang Focus, because thats what I like doing and also what I am good at.
There is a whole longtail of skills that are required to do any of this, also quite a few that are not even tech related, like proper communication or empathy.
But yeah, if you require assitance, I am definitly the kubernetes-dude that you can call and it should be as simple as that.