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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?

#151

Post by thrwyoilarticle »

keyle wrote: post #15

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…

The counterpoint to this is the C developer who promises they can scale up to C++ and then takes a disproportionate amount of review time to be taught not to use malloc/free/new/delete/etc.

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

#152

Post by tremon »

micahbule wrote: post #86
woutr_be wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have noticed that when interviewing, the more specialized technical people often look down on full stack engineers, whereas managers are more excited about it. I consider myself full stack, but in my last role I presented myself as a frontend engineer, with some backend experience. Eventually this role just kinda expanded into both frontend and backend. Now that I do contract work, I present myself as whatever they…

Specialized technical people often look down on supposed fullstack engineers because specialized technical people value mastery over familiarity -- something a lot of FS engineers really try to be exaggeratingly proud of. While familiarity with your stack is great for cross-cutting concerns, mastery is what truly builds great software, not to mention in a timely manner. Managers are excited about FS engineers simply…

That's funny, because as a generalist I tend to look down on single-purpose developers. Way too often they don't know anything about the rest of the system they're interfacing with and produce locally optimal but globally inferior solutions. My main gripes include frontend developers that don't understand HTTP and backend developers that don't understand SQL.

And besides, where does your notion of "full stack" begin? Is it backend application code? Operating system libraries? Kernel code? Hardware drivers? I'd argue "full stack developer" is a misnomer anyway, since no developer can (or would want to) write both kernel drivers and html/css frontends.

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

#153

Post by zhdc1 »

jameshush wrote: post #62

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…

Excellent advice!

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

#155

Post by Xcelerate »

I’ve noticed some of the best experts in their field started out as generalists (e.g., Edward Witten).

My theory is that exploring a wide range of interests and areas allows you to come up with novel ideas that a strict specialist would not think of. I believe there was some research at one point on how Nobel prize winners in science have a significantly greater variety of hobbies than the average person.

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

#156

Post by BSVogler »

jmconfuzeus wrote: post #146

I 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 learn…

I think your employment issue is somewhere else. It is not true that all python development switched domains. E.g. you cannot replace your web back-end with AI. And there are many companies which use python for other domains. It is one of the most popular programming languages.

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

#159

Post by roguas »

Being a generalist is a meta specialization of sorts. Some people are good at assembly of pieces - almost every CTO/Architect I have admired would be considered a generalist. Such person can obtain enough knowledge to have input and be productive and doing it across concerns is pretty epic skill.

Preferably engineers I like working with are T shaped. So they are generalists to a degree they can fill in but they have their own domain where their expertise is gathered. Its way easier for me to say "its just like the ... X" and if people have some rough understanding of X we can move on. If they don't we gonna have a week of explaining/understanding whats X.

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

#160

Post by Aeolun »

sph wrote: post #135
jameshush wrote: post #62

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…

Don't use "full stack engineer", these days for recruiters and HR it means "knows Node.js and React", which is sad and frustrating. My Ask HN post about it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32317514

But I like React and Node.js. It works fine for me.
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