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Ask HN: What job can a “jack of all trades” look for?

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Re: Ask HN: What job can a “jack of all trades” look for?

#131

Post by barrkel »

FartyMcFarter wrote: post #101
gshdg wrote: post #2

Smaller companies need generalists more than big ones do. You’re likely best off in early stage startups, small agencies, or your own consulting business. There are also incubators and such who can use that skillset to help bootstrap multiple startups per year.

> Smaller companies need generalists more than big ones do Big companies like Google also seem to hire a lot of generalists who have good programming fundamentals, are smart, and can quickly (i.e. within months) become productive in many kinds of projects. These generalists then work on a project for 1-3 years. When they lose interest, they move to another Google project or leave the company. If you really want to wo…

I'd have put it the other way around. Small startups can't afford specialists, not in terms of salary, but in terms of output: there's too much stuff to do and the specialist work (whatever it is) isn't a large fraction of the total.

The larger and more mature a company is, the more able it is to afford a job title which specializes in something narrower. It doesn't need to be super large; if the product is very technical, a specialist might be necessary.

The situation can be a bit different in a large company. They might want to hire a Java developer, or a front end developer. These are specialist roles, in that the people in them have chosen a professional specialism. They're commodity specialists though, so common that they're not thought of as special. It's more rare that they want someone who can do devops, UI, JS, RoR, Java and C++ - this is a generalist.

Re: Ask HN: What job can a “jack of all trades” look for?

#132

Post by Scea91 »

You need to look into the book 'Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World' as it might boost your spirit a bit and also give you some ideas.

You can do any 'job'. If you have communication skills you are particularly well-suited to be a leader coordinating a team of specialists, connecting them and finding value in the overlap of their specialities.

Most of the people are too narrow now in my opinion. It is your great advantage that you can see a bigger picture than an overspecialized PHP Developer for example.

Re: Ask HN: What job can a “jack of all trades” look for?

#133

Post by wespiser_2018 »

In my previous job, I was a data scientist at a start up company, and developed skillsets in a few areas, mostly by working as a technical lead on projects by myself. When the time came for my next role, the most important advice I got was to take the time to figure out what I want to do next, based on the skills I had.

Given that, I ended up applying to jobs that satisfied two criteria. 1) I'd be on a good technical team, and not working as a sole developer on a project 2) The company has a great learning opportunities and mentorship.

From my experience, "jack of all trades" usually just means "all the things we need, at company X, right now", and one "jack of all trades" or multi-skilled position may not overlap with another, it's entirely context dependent. Thus, these positions tend to evolve from something else in smaller, less structured companies, and one option for you would be just trying to join a similar company!

Re: Ask HN: What job can a “jack of all trades” look for?

#134

Post by daniel_iversen »

Presales consulting (also sometimes called Systems Engineer, Solutions Engineer, Sales Engineer, Sales Consultant or Solutions Architect) can be a very fun and rewarding job with lots of personal growth (but of course there’s a spectrum). So if you love technology, sales and Business you could explore that. You’re basically part of a sales function within an organisation and your role in the sale centres heavily around solution definition, architecture and security (incl objection handling), business case creation, (some) detailed product demonstrations, vision/thought leadership etc. I’ve been doing it for like 15 years or so and love it.

Re: Ask HN: What job can a “jack of all trades” look for?

#135

Post by purerandomness »

redsymbol wrote: post #90
exterrestrial wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The first acquisition was funded by a loan from my parents for $44K. Thanks for being honest. It might help to put this in the first comment though.

Why? How does it matter? Not meaning to challenge you in any way, just sincerely want to understand your thinking.

Because it answers a different type of question: What you would do if you wouldn't have to work for a living, for the next six months.

While interesting, most of us can't relate to this situation. Having half a year worth of "fun money" to spend bootstrapping a business idea, or investng in one, is skipping the first step.

It's like one of these "draw the rest of the fucking owl" jokes:

How to become rich:

1. Get 44k

2. ???

3. Pofit!

Re: Ask HN: What job can a “jack of all trades” look for?

#136

Post by twblalock »

hanoz wrote: post #95
shepardrtc wrote: post #33

DevOps I had the same issues for many years, but the past 2 positions have been official "DevOps" positions and they more often than not have me doing so many random things that require all sorts of skills. I love it. It keeps things interesting, and it makes me very valuable to the company because I can do whatever they need. Sure, some places have a very narrow definition of DevOps, but that's usually the large com…

Whenever I see DevOps roles advertised they seem to consist of a wall of product names under "must have x years commercial experience of", which is not at all conducive to attracting a true turn-hand-to-anything generalist.

Most of the time, those job requirements are flexible.

Re: Ask HN: What job can a “jack of all trades” look for?

#137

Post by shepardrtc »

autotune wrote: post #106
hanoz wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whenever I see DevOps roles advertised they seem to consist of a wall of product names under "must have x years commercial experience of", which is not at all conducive to attracting a true turn-hand-to-anything generalist.

Yeah but when it's "must have x years of experience of $CLOUD_PROVIDER" that's a whole ecosystem of tools to become proficient at. As someone who does DevOps I've learned to take any hard requirements in job descriptions with a grain of salt; companies are desperate for good DevOps talent, most suck at hiring for it, and some are aware of both of those facts and as a result are more flexible on some things than they…

This has been my experience as well. Some companies are strict about requirements, such as the FAANG companies, but many other smaller companies just need someone who has a wide range of experience and can jump on new stuff without any problems. Obviously you have to know basic DevOps terminology, but after that everything is gravy.

Re: Ask HN: What job can a “jack of all trades” look for?

#138

Post by Rapzid »

0xff00ffee wrote: post #94

Are you sure you're a "jack of all trades"? It sounds like you have interests that cross different domains, but can you execute in those domains? You're not likely to get a job as a generalist if your pitch is "I like everything", unless you can demonstrate your accomplishments across a broad range, which takes years to develop. With only 7 years expereince, it is not likely you've achieved that. That being said, I t…

Seven years is quite a long time. That's just over two whole years at three separate companies! For somebody that can execute that's plenty of time to build a portfolio of accomplishments.

Re: Ask HN: What job can a “jack of all trades” look for?

#139

Post by BrandoElFollito »

yibg wrote: post #118

Put in a bit of a different view point here. I was the generalist a while ago too. Worked at a consulting firm that did custom builds with small teams, so not only did everything technology wise but also interacting with clients. So did part of developer, account management, sales, dev ops etc roles. Also did everything from backend to mobile in different frameworks and environments. I thought the same, that I was a…

Point 3 is a good one, I would just aim at \pi rather than T, just in case.

Re: Ask HN: What job can a “jack of all trades” look for?

#140

Post by fxtentacle »

akcreek wrote: post #51

I have a wide-ranging self-taught skill set as well that I've developed over the last 14 years of running my own businesses. I'll share what I'm doing from a high level as it might not be the most common path. I've been acquiring small but promising businesses that don't have the right team in place to move them forward. I bootstrap them on my own and replace my roles as the business can afford staff. Once enough rol…

I support this approach. I learned a lot about online marketing and selling physical products by purchasing a struggling online shop. There's even dedicated web pages like flippa.com or empireflippers.com
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