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What Is a Wildcard Person?

wildcardpeople.com

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Re: What Is a Wildcard Person?

#211

Post by 2devnull »

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,…

A big part of this is that specialist can be fake, often are, and nobody can tell. They just need to know slightly more about kubernetes or whatever specialty it is, than other people around them. I often come across “experts” that aren’t really experts in anything besides self-branding. Our university system is built on this. It’s also the reason why we haven’t made much progress in the last 50 years or so. Everybody is just enough of a specialist to demand a wage, not more. What’s the saying, “they promised flying cars, but gave us Facebook.”

Re: What Is a Wildcard Person?

#212

Post by lytefm »

taubek wrote: post #194
lytefm wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd also say that being a T shaped person is how I'd try to be „hirable“ as a generalist. Get really good at one thing that has a title (in my case: „Data Engineer“) but also have a broad range of skills.

Sometimes it sucks to be T-shaped. Imposter syndrome kicks in all of the time :)

Doesn't it get balanced by the occasional „Why do I have to show you how to do your job“? ;)

Re: What Is a Wildcard Person?

#213

Post by filoleg »

i386 wrote: post #125
Laakeri wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For example Google hires mostly generalists and lots of people who care about income and career progression work there.

Google does not. It hires a lot of specialists and fungible people.

From my personal observations, Google indeed hires a lot of generalists.

Source: been an SWE in a hardware org for the past year there, and my team is a mix of about 1-2 people with plenty of previous hardware experience and focus, with the rest being generalists without much previous related experience (including me) who can pick things up and resolve them quickly, whatever they are. Observed quite a similar pattern on other teams in the org as well, with the only exception (to a degree) being a few research teams filled with PhDs.

Re: What Is a Wildcard Person?

#214

Post by zxexz »

anthlax wrote: post #206

Does anyone else think this reads like a horoscope? As in, it’s quite likely that this applies to most people reading it to some degree. Not many jobs (at least in my SWE space) are directly linear and require a variety of tasks.

That was my takeaway. Reading it feels like it describes me perfectly, which is often a dead giveaway for something being horoscope-like IME. I think it mostly describes the sort of people you find at early stage startups. Which isn’t everyone, for sure. I’ve often been described as a “fixer” - you get something working, you build an MVP, etc. then you move onto something else. I’d say that’s at least 1/3 of engineers at a standard startup. But, that’s just my experience!

Re: What Is a Wildcard Person?

#215

Post by filoleg »

dinkumthinkum wrote: post #198
corobo wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be interested in seeing if other wildcard types actually care about this? Beyond living well of course, need cash for that. My drive is dopamine, not money. As long as I'm fed and not in debt I couldn't give a rat's tail how much I'm earning. I'd take a hefty pay cut to jump on a "hell yes" project.

I think a lot of technical people care more than a rat’s tail what they earn. But I agree, it seems like a of HNers say they aren’t interested in any more money than to just barely physically survive. I mean, they say that, I don’t know. I haven’t many of these types in person. It is amusing, though.

I've seen those types in person, and it is indeed amusing, but they exist. Typically, they fall in one of the two categories.

1. Recent college grad or someone who hasn't worked at a company where there is significant pay involved yet. They tend to abandon their take on this, as soon as they get their first well-paying job. At least until they potentially become a part of group [2] I describe below, but that's not necessarily always the case.

2. Those who have been in the industry for a long time and amassed a savings nest/net worth large enough, they can afford not to work for quite a long time without taking any noticeable hit to their finances at all.

For HN specifically, my guess is that we have quite a solid mix of both, with the latter probably being better represented here due to the average age and experience.

Disclaimer: all of this is pure speculation and just my personal take.

Re: What Is a Wildcard Person?

#216

Post by YurgenJurgensen »

analog31 wrote: post #199
YurgenJurgensen wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an evocative quote, but it's also nonsense. The selection of skills is a bit scattershot, but let's look at some examples: "butchering a hog" takes a year to learn, well, butchery to a professional standard, because someone who can butcher hogs but not cows sounds awfully 'specialised', some places even say that a butchery apprenticeship takes 24 months. (And I personally wouldn't trust an unqualified butcher to…

My take is that Heinlein was trying to write literature, not documentation. So a colorful exaggeration makes sense.

People, including the poster I was replying to aren’t generally writing literature when they quote it though, and they like quoting that a lot.

Re: What Is a Wildcard Person?

#217

Post by bob1029 »

I am definitely somewhere on this spectrum. If you find yourself in this bucket, try to add 1 more trick to your repertoire: Patience.

For me, this has proven to be a far more difficult lesson than anything in the actual computer system. Sitting quietly and waiting for others to deliberate something important, often across days and weeks, feels like torture to me. Especially, when the answer is so obvious in my own mind and the implications of bad decision making are severe.

People are irrational and unpredictable. Waiting for them to see things your way can sometimes take longer than expected. This is not something to be fixed. It is something to be tolerated. Unless you are running a one-man startup, this is unavoidable - Do you want to do the jobs of all your teammates?

If you cannot get your way on day 1, do NOT send that salty email right away. Type out a draft, send it to yourself, and then read it the next morning. Consider other perspectives as often as possible.

I'd say the most impactful wildcard is one who is also very good at salesmanship. If you can come up with crazy ideas and also convince everyone on the team they are amazing, you are going to be unstoppable. The #1 trick in my estimation is to turn one option into a few options. A carefully-crafted illusion of free will can make a huge difference.

Re: What Is a Wildcard Person?

#218

Post by YurgenJurgensen »

ajkjk wrote: post #177
YurgenJurgensen wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an evocative quote, but it's also nonsense. The selection of skills is a bit scattershot, but let's look at some examples: "butchering a hog" takes a year to learn, well, butchery to a professional standard, because someone who can butcher hogs but not cows sounds awfully 'specialised', some places even say that a butchery apprenticeship takes 24 months. (And I personally wouldn't trust an unqualified butcher to…

I think they're talking about butchering a hog at the skill level of a person who grew up near people who owned hogs, ie, definitely a "I did this with somebody at a barbecue a few times" and not "24 months of training". Giving and taking orders likewise doesn't remotely require army training, it just requires growing up around human beings and being part of anything -- theater, bands, church groups, service groups,…

I notice you ignored all the actually difficult items on the list there. You know, the ones where the Dunning-Kruger brigade are a liability and mistakes mean people die.

Re: What Is a Wildcard Person?

#219

Post by mr_cheese_ »

shp0ngle wrote: post #142
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,…

Hm. I don’t know. As a “generalist” myself, I find it sometimes hard to find a new job (as it’s hard to describe what exactly you did), but once I land a new job, I somehow become a person that just can’t be fired, and bring a lot of value to the team. However, what I CAN recommend for such people and what did help me is to move more into management. If you are a jack of all trades, you can also quite easily tell wha…

I can't second this enough. After 20 years as an excellent generalist I was getting bored as an IC. I struggled with finding interesting roles until I moved into management. All those good enough skills in a lot of areas, and the ability to connect things and people, really helps you shine. Plus, you get to fix all kinds of new problems.

Re: What Is a Wildcard Person?

#220

Post by rolenthedeep »

uwagar wrote: post #183
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,…

bit biased towards waging war or being a soldier.

Heinlein was an American naval officer just after WWI and right before WWII. At that time it wasn't called "bias" it was simply "being American".

That quote was written in a very different world.

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