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What Is a Wildcard Person?

wildcardpeople.com

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Re: What Is a Wildcard Person?

#81

Post by Jensson »

neilv wrote: post #71
Jensson wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Might be easier to hire people who show technical strength at something Yeah, hire for intelligence and curiosity. An intelligent and curious developer probably studied algorithms to a useful level, if you don't understand them well you either aren't smart or you lack the curiosity to look into new topics. A generalist developers who isn't even at that level in their subjects isn't worth their salt, I'm not sure wh…

I think your argument might be interpreted as encouraging Leetcode interviews, which I'd disagree with.

The algorithms they ask for in interviews are so low level that any programmer could learn them in a couple of months, that is generalist level and not specialist level. Not all developers who pass them are generalists, but the people who don't aren't generalist developers. They could be generalist problems solvers who dabbles a bit in programming, but they aren't generalist developers.

Re: What Is a Wildcard Person?

#82

Post by thaumaturgy »

beebmam wrote: post #72
thaumaturgy wrote: post #32

17 years ago, there was a popular essay about this sort of person, and the label at the time was "Free Electron": https://randsinrepose.com/archives/free-electron/ Before that, they were known as "generalists", autodidacts, polymaths, etc. The thing is that pretty much any clever person that's easily invested in novel things can become one of these people, so this label isn't reserved for people who are generalists,…

Is this simply an apriori argument? Do you have any evidence to back up your claim beyond your reasoning? I don't find it very persuasive, and based on my own experiences being a generalist for the majority of my career, I can say it certainly doesn't apply to me. My compensation is >$500k a year and I've been a software engineer since 2010.

What search terms would you recommend a generalist plug in to indeed.com to maximize their chances of getting hired at a competitive salary?

Remember, they are a generalist, so specific languages, frameworks, and platforms don't count; they won't be more experienced in any of those than competing applicants, by their nature.

Re: What Is a Wildcard Person?

#83

Post by fuzzfactor »

robmerki wrote: post #41
SpeedilyDamage wrote: post #24

Don’t you kind of have to be this person if you want to found a startup? To me this just describes a founder. If you’re not a founder and you’re putting this kind of energy into your job, I hope you at least have substantial equity, because otherwise you’re being taken advantage of. Know your worth! Also if you think this is you, it probably isn’t. There isn’t an “engineering” wildcard or a “marketing” wildcard, the…

Many people who I met while writing this article told me they don’t want the full blown responsibilities of being a founder. They just like doing lots of different things. But ultimately, you’re right.

>Imagine being involved in everything a company does.

Schipplock has a good imagination, realistic, too:

>As someone already commented, it‘s a recipe for a burn-out.

But doesn't burn out the real wildcard CEO material. For this person it's not wild to go beyond a recipe, it's common.

A lower-performing CEO who's only involved in less than everything a company does, limits the company to achieveing less than everything it could. These are the ones most threatened by a wildcard operator at any level, and that trepidation will trickle down until making contact with the threat in a neutralizing way. Poisoning the chain of command against comprehensive problem-solving all the way down.

Re: What Is a Wildcard Person?

#84

Post by alganet »

Just remember: the article is a generalization. There are many in-betweens and people present much more variation in real life scenarios.

In IT specifically, there is a high level of cross-pollination between different areas. Anyone with enough years invested in the industry will have some degree or another of wildcardness to its toolbelt. Willingness to play the role or hire for it will also vary considerably.

Compared to other industries, IT is very young and it is still very much possible to be a specialist in more than one thing (just because many of these things haven't fully matured yet). That's considerably harder on areas with a broader legacy such as biology or physics.

Re: What Is a Wildcard Person?

#85

Post by omegabravo »

MikeDelta wrote: post #79
J_cst wrote: post #3

That's basically talking about me. On my job they call me Mr. Wolf and I love it. The description is quite accurate, main difference being that the article focuses mainly on semi-marketing tasks instead I tend to be assigned higher level issues (I mainly deal with emergencies raised by our CEOs). It was nice to read it, I feel less lonely now.

Cool nick, does it refer to a character or the animal itself?

character from Pulp Fiction. The "problem solver"

https://quentin-tarantino.fandom.com/wiki/The_Wolf

Re: What Is a Wildcard Person?

#86

Post by RHSman2 »

kthejoker2 wrote: post #11

As a wildcard person, one thing not mentioned is they need to be complemented by at least one type A, no-nonsense delivery manager who can block their say-yes-to-everything attitude, help them prioritize and focus, and ensure the "boring stuff" like test suites and status reports are flowing. Together this tandem can do truly great things.

That takes a wildcard with self awareness AND humility. As a WC, historically, I have looked down upon such managers but in the last few years I have started to stare my weaknesses in the face and recognize that everyone has a role and that getting cogs to align makes magic.

Re: What Is a Wildcard Person?

#87

Post by SeriousM »

rendall wrote: post #78

I think that's all of us, really. I'm reminded of Heinlein's quote "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, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently,…

Haven't read something so true for long time. We're so much into "fake specialization" that we don't recognise it anymore. Learn making Musik, talk to people, draw something, use your body! One doesn't need to be an expert yet can use what he/she got!

Re: What Is a Wildcard Person?

#88

Post by LAC-Tech »

My old boss was one of these. Everything from coding to architecture to fixing laser printers to emotional outlet for the finance team (finance really had issues).

I would want him on my team without hesitation, and 100% would never want to try and do all the things he does.

Re: What Is a Wildcard Person?

#89

Post by leftbit »

Jensson wrote: post #76
leftbit wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A wildcard tends to focus on the problem solving and tries to cut on the fluff. So this feels certainly being more productive than dancing the process steps, striving for perfect code coverage by unit tests, nitpicking in code reviews and messing around with "cool" frameworks. (I consider myself a "wilcard". Once joined a project for a sprint with a very elaborate development process. Spent about one hour on things I…

Organisations are built by interesting people on top of boring people. Boring people makes for better building material, they are easy to work with, put them somewhere and they will do their task, without them you wont get large lasting organisations, the value cannot be realized without a combination of both.

Quite so. As the article stated there are quite a lot of things wildcards abhor which the company needs done somehow anyway. Devs with another mentality.

But that wasn't my point in my previous comment. I was thinking more along the lines of "value for the customer" and the 80:20-rule.

I'm quite aware there's a strong correlation between code quality and the quality perceived by the customer, but if the customer didn't demand a certain percentage of code coverage or that every typo fix in a comment has to be done on a developer branch and code reviewed I see no value in these activities. So I feel more productive if I'm able to omit those steps.

Others probably think they're more productive than me because I don't get anything "really finished" by their standards.

Re: What Is a Wildcard Person?

#90

Post by RHSman2 »

doctor_eval wrote: post #20

Great article, reminds me of someone I know. One quibble, > If your Wildcard is a Product Manager, their team will ship feature-complete products on time, but without the neatly organized armada of JIRA tickets or burn-down charts you wished to see. The friction of keeping things organized is less stimulating than the instant feedback of just doing the work. “Just doing the work” is the point. The fact that the work…

Me.

I ask myself is it a good thing or a bad thing.

Good thing: shit gets done

Bad thing: every other person I work with is not a wildcard and really works well under well designed, product management/software processes.

If I could invent anything, it would be a disassociative state where I could just download brain ideas (completed)

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