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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?

#171

Post by Cthulhu_ »

f1shy wrote: post #120
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…

One of the best pieces of advice somebody gave me, was along the lines: "if you are not interested on it, don't even think about touching it, not even with the light of a laser pointer , keep away from it, play it stupid" That was short after I started playing with sendmail configuration, and I started to be named "the expert" of sendmail... BIG mistake... So, yeah... just do not tell anybody your skills, if you do n…

Great advice; I did some Scala like ten years ago and put it on my CV and linkedin. Then the recruiters kept sending me offers for a Scala job.

But... I don't know Scala anymore, I don't LIKE scala, and I don't WANT to do scala.

So it's a bit of a trade-off; on the one end, you want your CV and linkedin profile to reflect how amazing you are, how many things you know, etc. But on the other, you want it to be an invitation for people to approach and hire you for something YOU want to be doing.

I've updated my linkedin to reflect what I'm fairly good at - web front-end - because that's job guarantee, and what I want to be doing - Go - for whoever wants to take a punt on it. And I'll keep tweaking it towards what I WANT to do. I'm sure I'll keep mentioning what I've worked with in the descriptors of different jobs and projects, but I will de-emphasize the list of technologies in the summary section.

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

#172

Post by trashtester »

woutr_be wrote: post #76
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…

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…

I actually dislike the term "full stack engineers". "Full stack applicaton developers" is slightly better, at least it's limited to a single output (the app). I would not trust them with the design of an airplane, nuclear plant or military submarine, all of which are engineering tasks.

30 years ago, every app developer was "full stack", and the concept didn't even exist. As apps moved to the web during the dot-com era, the added complexity made some companies split their teams of entry level developers into front-end, back-end and database. Still, at that time, this "stack" was simple enough at the time that a good dev could learn the basics front-end, back-and and basic db work within a few years. So, a few years after dotcom, the "full stack dev" became popular, but really what they were delivering was the same as the app devs of the early 90s.

But even within software, engineering is so much more than just making web apps or RESTful microservices behind the web apps, and the field is still grown rapidly. There is data engineering, machine learning engineering, infrastructure ("devops") engineering, operating system engineering, driver engineering, network engineering, real time system engineering, algorithm/library engineering, and I probably left most of the sub-fields out.

So my main issue with "full stack engineers" is that I've met a few with (in reality) a fairly limited skillset who are quite overconfident about other aspects of software and the infra around software, who assume that the principles they follow when buildings web apps apply to all domains of software, and show a significant amount of hubris [edit] but still often failing spectacularly when trying to use their particular skillset in a somewhat different domain.

I realize that this impresson of mine is based on a few bad apples. But I think there is something in this "full stack" concept that can contribute to some devs underestimating the the kinds of work that are normally not considered part of this stack.

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

#173

Post by sph »

Aeolun wrote: post #160
sph wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I never said they're bad. I'm saying that not very long ago, full stack means from system security, administration, being proficient with databases, backend and frontend development, and at least a couple languages under the belt.

These days it just means frontend and backend, in the same language, often the same framework.

The same term that was used to identify senior generalist engineers with extensive experience in the field, these days is used for any junior JS dev with a couple years of experience under their belt. Not their fault, it's the recruiters fault for appropriating the incorrect label instead of creating a new one.

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

#175

Post by Cthulhu_ »

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…

I think the differentiating factor, for me, if I were in a hiring position, would be that full-stack engineers are curious, flexible, and both eager and very able to learn.

Specialists, I have less experience with working with them though so take these generalizations with a big and hopefully non-insulting grain of salt. On the one hand they will be experts in their field, know whatever they work on inside-out, and can squeeze every last grain of performance out of it - good DBA's are worth their weight in gold, they can solve a company's performance problems and save them millions depending on the scale.

On the other you have a group of people that sorta know one language, like Java, and will just coast along on it for their careers; their CVs will look impressive, their skills will be indistinguishable from someone who has one year of experience. I've literally seen code that was a copy / paste of the first google search result of "java sql query", buried ten indentation levels deep, in a critical core codebase.

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

#176

Post by koonsolo »

f1shy wrote: post #120
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…

One of the best pieces of advice somebody gave me, was along the lines: "if you are not interested on it, don't even think about touching it, not even with the light of a laser pointer , keep away from it, play it stupid" That was short after I started playing with sendmail configuration, and I started to be named "the expert" of sendmail... BIG mistake... So, yeah... just do not tell anybody your skills, if you do n…

At one company I was the expert in Crystal Reports. Right now, nobody knows I even know what Crystal Reports is.

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

#177

Post by sph »

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]

The day you decide to play Crusader Kings 3 or a grand strategy game.

It requires some lateral thinking to figure out how can your dynasty conquer the entire British island, subduing the Scots, the Norwegian, the Saxons while being at war with France and you're just a lowly Irish duke with a crippled heir.

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

#178

Post by deltasevennine »

woutr_be wrote: post #76
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…

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…

The reason why technical people look down on full stack engineers is because they are usually just web developers. Web development is one of the easiest and over saturated areas of software development. That is not to say web development is easy, it's just "easiest."

It's hard for a full stack engineer to see or admit to this because of bias, it's much easier for someone outside of web development to see it, or a more well rounded engineer to realize it.

Full stack isn't even the correct term for these engineers. They usually aren't truly full stack. They just "front end" and "back end", of the web development stack. AN actual "Full" stack encompasses far more. OS development, embedded development, compiler development, database development, graphics programming, are all really hard things that are missing from someone who typically refers to themselves as "full stack".

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

#179

Post by lupire »

tremon wrote: post #152
micahbule wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?…

The problem in both cases is being an asshole who doesn't respect the value of other people's skills.

The main thing "wrong" with a specialist is that not every org needs a full time specialist, so specialists are more likely to need to work as consultants.

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

#180

Post by agotterer »

f1shy wrote: post #120
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…

One of the best pieces of advice somebody gave me, was along the lines: "if you are not interested on it, don't even think about touching it, not even with the light of a laser pointer , keep away from it, play it stupid" That was short after I started playing with sendmail configuration, and I started to be named "the expert" of sendmail... BIG mistake... So, yeah... just do not tell anybody your skills, if you do n…

This advice should also translate to your resume/LinkedIn. If you list a piece of technology on your resume you should know that it’s fair game for people to ask question about it during interviews and for your resume to match on those keywords.

I see so many resumes with massive lists of technology exposure. I assume the intention is to demonstrate the breadth of experience. But if you don’t want to work in that language or framework you used 10 years ago, take it off. Only list the stuff that is relevant and that you’re willing to work with.

The technical summary on my resume is just that, a summary, not a comprehensive list. It’s 1/3 of the tech I’ve actually used throughout my career because I’m not interested in a job doing Flash or Visual Basic and I don’t want to receive anymore recruiting inquires about Magento development because I used it briefly a decade ago.

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