131–140 of 140 posts
Just remember the adage: A specialist will tend to underestimate a generalist's ability to specialize, when they choose to focus on one thing; A generalist will tend to underestimate how deep any given specialty actually extends.
I don't think that's really an adage. It's also flawed. A broader experience gives you a much better idea of how much you don't know.
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I think you're focusing too much on the strict semantics of "generalist" - whether the word is accurate or not will largely depend on context and how much you "zoom out". I could argue with you that someone who does development, project management and implementation is still a software specialist, and that a real generalist is someone who can sell, or someone who can play piano, as well as do the aforementioned. I am…
Non sequitur: can we chat about your consultancy? Looking to potentially do the same myself and would love to pick your brain for some dos and don'ts. If you're willing, email me, username without the 2 at gmail, and no offense if you can't.
I’m a generalist and I would 100% recommend it over being a specialist because you get to see the whole picture. You start to notice patterns across different programming paradigms that make you a better developer. You learn techniques to quickly teach yourself and learn about the problem domain which translate into other parts of your life besides computers. I’ve taught myself how to work on cars using deductive log…
What I understood is this author's definition of a generalist is someone who expands his scope beyond just programming. To things like design, business development, hr management, recruiting, raising funds etc. Generally, it may not be so common to find an individual who's almost equally as passionate about all of these things. In the end we got limited time on this planet and can't learn everything.
I have always preferred being a generalist since I tend to get bored quickly. Once you are a generalist you can build any side project you can think of without any external help. It fascinates me how you can cover almost all of the software development landscape using just a couple of languages ( C# , Javascript and Java). C# runs on servers ( .NET core ), Desktop(WinForms and WPF), mobile platforms ( Xamarin Forms),…
I agree wholeheartedly. Maybe it's because my grandfather was a farmer and I learned a lot from him, but from a very young age it's always been "what do I need to learn to be able to do this?" instead of "who can I find who knows how to do this?"
> almost all of the software development landscape
Embedded would like to have a word with you :)
I do agree with you though, at this point that is a pretty good set of 3 languages that cover a lot of breadth for application (web/mobile/desktop) development.
David Epstein's Range [0] is a great look into this seeming paradox of broad v. deep. The intro chapters of Tiger Woods with golf versus Roger Federer with tennis are the thesis: There are 'kind' learning environments and 'unkind' learning environments. 'Kind' learning environments are golf, chess, SAT prep, etc. Here, you just need to grind out the hours. The feedback is fairly quick and the objective is clear. You…
"Federer, who started playing tennis at age eight, became Switzerland's junior champion when he was 14." Is that what's considered late?
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Yes, ageism is one of the consequences (or reason) of such interview practice.
Is there any evidence that older engineers are worse at these interviews than younger ones?
Take a standardized test like the LSAT. Young single people can spend 4-5 hours a day taking practice LSAT exams. Older married people with small children barely have 2 spare hours after work let alone 4 (without neglecting their spouse/kids).
Assuming both the older and younger devs in this scenario have identical IQs, who is likely to do better come LSAT test day? It's a war of time attrition.
Think of a specialist as putting all your eggs in one basket, high risk high reward ratio. Generalist is like investing in an index, can’t go wrong most times, but you won’t hit any home runs
For example, David Epstein in his book (https://davidepstein.com/the-range/) talks about outsider advantage. Sometimes all specialists in the field have similar ideas, but an outsider can think about an interesting analogy to other problems that seem unrelated and come up with many novel solutions to difficult problems that seem highly specialized.
I've been currently looking for employment and job descriptions nowadays are ridiculous. In one paragraph or section of a job description, they'll specifically state that they want a generalist, and in the very next section, they'll state explicitly that they want a specialist; just crazy. Also, throughout my job history I've been more of a generalist; sort of like a modern day devops (but much broader in scope/respo…
Some of this might be because specialists are perceived to need less on-boarding, and it's very easy to overestimate the cost of on-boarding. Once fully on board, I think many would agree the generalist is desirable. Another factor is, as someone else pointed out, that there's a huge difference between "learned, skilled generalist" and "inexperienced who hasn't yet learned much" and both characters may go by the gene…
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How does Google "select heavily for generalists" when the interview is almost entirely comp sci? Perhaps you mean "computer science generalist". Afaik, the only way for me to get a software offer from Google is to spend dozens or hundreds of hours studying computer science, and nothing else. If I interview for software at Google, they don't ask about my skills in product design, economics, or strategy. If I interview…
Although most engineers at Google doesn't talk to non-engineers Google still have roles requiring both. Examples: https://careers.google.com/jobs/results/89970700451750598-te... https://careers.google.com/jobs/results/141084669270467270-p... https://careers.google.com/jobs/results/75981898595082950-pr...