Ask HN: Do you regret being a generalist?

There is an element of truth to this, especially if you don't have leverage. I've been there, too. Actually, there are two risks:

- People (co-workers AND management) may cynically use you for the tasks that are menial, messy and boring and doesn't lead anywhere. You become the tech equivalent of a janitor or secretary.

- People who see only one side of you think that that side is your only skill, not something you're able to in addition to your primary skillset.

In both cases, if you decide to assume the role of a generalist but want to avoid these risks, you have to spend some effort to position yourself.

These are the steps I would recommend:

1. When describing yourself, do emphasize the generalism. I tend to claim that I can do almost anything as long as it is technical, but I do some things quite slowly. In particular you need to communicate this with your manager.

2. Make sure you demonstrate the skills in the sides you have that you want to spend more time on. This means to volunteer for tasks of this type, and make sure to overperform on these tasks and market the result to decision-makers. This is perhaps the most crucial part, as it includes demonstrating an ability to show initiative and work independently.

3. Let people know that your time is valuable and costly. With managers you need to demonstrate that you can produce more value for them if they don't let you get stuck into something trivial.

4. With lazy/abusive co-workers, you may have to simply let them know that you're not the assistant they can hand over the boring part to. This may be more difficult than with the managers, especially if you're not good at marking your limits in a firm but polite manner.

However as long as management want you to work where you provide more value, you can simply tell your co-workers something like "I'd love to help you with , AGAIN, but I'm afraid I don't have much free time until Thursday from 7am-8am two weeks from now....". Or you can simply say "I'd love to help you with , but I've been ordered to focuson , maybe you can explain your need to my manager and have him approve this". One approach is to make it inconvenient for them, the other is to force them to admit some deficiency to management before you help them.

I dunno...that's actually my job. :) I work (mostly) doing embedded software (drivers/os/apps) but also help with some of the supporting back end web services and yeah, some of the front end code as well. It's handy for the company since I can work on whatever's most needful from week-to-week as well as take features from device to backend to production. Why would I want to? Well, I get to learn (more) new things and the scenery changes more often. It's not a bad gig if you can pull it off.

Web development has moved on to Javascript with a few Ruby on Rails stuff popping up from time to time. React is where the money's at these days.

I don't see Python being used for web much. Neither do I see generic programming being done with it because most companies have moved to Golang for that.

Python is popular for sure but specializing in it was a big mistake on my part. Pretty much every company will have a few internal projects in Python and that's why many of them list Python in their job description. It's also easy to pickup which means that almost everyone will know a little Python.

If I had generalized, my Python skills wouldn't be as good as they are today but my wallet wouldn't be as empty either. Just my 2 cents.

I don't know if I'm a generalist or more someone who's simply curious and not intimidated to get stuck into stuff I have zero knowledge of.

I seem to have acquired a fairly diverse set of technical skills compared to most devs which has it's advantages, but at the same time I know at times it can make it hard to explain to employers what I do and how I can be useful to them. Sometimes this leads to me being underutilised, and in my opinion under appreciated. It can also make interviews difficult because employers like you to talk about relevant experience where my experience is all over the place.

I personally think my skill set is awesome though. I tend to be the perfect candidate for smaller companies where technical specialisation isn't feasible. Need someone to do some some UI/UX design, frontend development, backend development, devops, AI, SEO, QA? I can help. I've worked with almost every major language at some point in my career and while I'm not great at every language, I'm familiar enough that I can get whatever needs doing done.

I do try to keep my frontend development skills current enough that I can call myself a frontend dev when needed. Generally for contracting or when applying for positions in larger companies this is my best route. When I'm in the door sometimes I can branch out a little, but it depends on the company. I do worry I might fall behind at some point due to my lack of focus, but honestly I think people who specialise too much fall into that trap more often. If the technology you specialise in becomes redundant, then so do you. Having a broad set of skills gives you a technical safety net because there is always something else you can fall back on, even if that comes at the cost of fitting less perfectly into any specific role.

So no, I don't regret it and I think it's actually an advantage if you can sell it correctly. Learn as much as you can in my opinion. There are definitely companies out there which really want great generalists who can just get stuff done.

That is a bit different take on.

When you are working in a company - if you don't want to have new responsibilities you don't touch it.

You touch WiFi router - well now it is your responsibility if WiFi stops working. You touched sendmail - well as you wrote quotes "expert".

But to be specialist on something it still requires quite in depth knowledge than "you were last one to touch it".