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On Being a Generalist

flaviocopes.com

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Re: On Being a Generalist

#41

Post by zerr »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #2

> Some companies only hire specialists. If you’re Google, it makes little sense to hire a generalist, I think. Having been through a Google interview and offer process, this seems exactly backwards: Google selects heavily for generalists, so that they have people who can adapt to and integrate different technologies. (I'm sure they do hire specialists in various areas, but their interview process optimizes for genera…

No, they hire Competitive Programmers - this is a separate specialty, but Google assumes such programmers should be able jump into real world software engineering. They recognize the flaw but so far can't come up with a different way.

Re: On Being a Generalist

#42

Post by polote »

alexfromapex wrote: post #11

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…

It is not because you are comfortable doing something that it is a good idea for anyone to be like that, we are all different.

And we need specialists, how will you build a new microprocessor without having any specialist in microprocessors ?

Re: On Being a Generalist

#43

Post by numpad0 »

zeroonetwothree wrote: post #15

Google hires tons of generalists. The reasoning here is very flawed. Hiring specialists is higher variance. They could be amazing for your company or it could be that you need to do something slightly different and they are mostly useless. Generalists are safer but with less upside. Of course this dichotomy is false anyway. Everyone exists on a spectrum. No one has only a single skill at “max level” and no one has ev…

I don't think that's flawed, that just says they wants coders, not talents. They're known for good pays and cream of the crop employees, that doesn't mean their business requires or relies on those irregular capacities. They very well could be "daily driving a 911" so to speak, while nerds around assume they track it.

Re: On Being a Generalist

#44

Post by Tehchops »

pgt wrote: post #20

Be T-shaped: a jack of all trades, but a master of some.

This, IMHO, is the right answer.

The most proficient, well-compensated engineers I've worked with had deep technical knowledge in their respective domains, but were reasonably well-skilled in other areas(some non-technical), and could easily spool up to basic proficiency quickly.

Learning how to learn, and apply it well, seems to be the underlying meta-skill with the most value.

Re: On Being a Generalist

#45

Post by tincholio »

stared wrote: post #8

Often we cherish specialists quoting "Jack of all trades, master of none". Curiously enough, the full version of the original has a twist: “A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one." https://www.theodysseyonline.com/7-phrases-youve-been-misquo...

There is another aspect that is relevant, and that is that the effort needed to get to the 99th percentile of some ability is way larger than that to get to the 90th, and often, you can do very well with just being in the 85th. So you can become pretty good at many different (often complementary) things, in ways that likely make you way more effective than that guy who's a guru in a very specific topic.

Then again, sometimes that guru is also needed.

Re: On Being a Generalist

#46

Post by DonHopkins »

arcturus17 wrote: post #31
tdesilva wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. It seems like the author considers himself a generalist, but it sounds to me like he's a front end specialist.

Or a front-end generalist ? The use of one word or another indeed seems to depend on the optics.

Or an all-end specialist. (I like big bugs and I cannot lie!)

Re: On Being a Generalist

#47

Post by lifeslogit »

There are layers of each problem space that benefit from optimization and good design more than others, however, most solutions still need all the other layers to be useful. I've had extreme success being a data generalist at a mid-sized analytics company because I was able to be the one to fill in all the gaps of a project, e.g if there are 10 steps that need to be completed, the generalist can do 7 of them and the specialists can do a great job on those other 3. This is the magic of human collaboration after all! On the flip side, I've found that working alone I miss having the specialists. While I know I can technically achieve all the steps, what I really want is the context the specialists can add. Those bits of code or math that turn a vanilla engineered solution into a nuanced piece of software. My conclusion is that collaboration between generalists and specialists is important but asymmetric. Generalists need context and information from specialists so they can become semi-specialists, while specialists simply need generalist infrastructure to power their ideas.

Re: On Being a Generalist

#48

Post by umvi »

zerr wrote: post #41
JoshTriplett wrote: post #2

> Some companies only hire specialists. If you’re Google, it makes little sense to hire a generalist, I think. Having been through a Google interview and offer process, this seems exactly backwards: Google selects heavily for generalists, so that they have people who can adapt to and integrate different technologies. (I'm sure they do hire specialists in various areas, but their interview process optimizes for genera…

No, they hire Competitive Programmers - this is a separate specialty, but Google assumes such programmers should be able jump into real world software engineering. They recognize the flaw but so far can't come up with a different way.

> No, they hire Competitive Programmers

More specifically, programmers who spend a lot of time learning how to solve algorithm puzzles. This heavily favors single people who have lots of time to devote to studying such things and disadvantages time-constrained people such as developers with a family life at home.

Re: On Being a Generalist

#49

Post by jonnycomputer »

moksly wrote: post #13

I think the authors scope is way too narrow. If you’re a react developer who also knows vue, and perhaps enough ops to get side projects to run in Azure/AWS then you’re still a specialist. It’s easy to forget, because development is what we do, but it’s actually a rather specialist skill in itself. I say this as someone who has been part of several attempts at implementing things like RPA or even Sharepoint to non-de…

Being a generalist is hard, especially when fields are changing so rapidly (like web dev)

Re: On Being a Generalist

#50

Post by madsbuch »

There's something about granularity this blog does not touch. For an outsider it is extremely specialist to know design, marketing, developing and a bit of server admin.

I'd say generalists split their time across software development, composing music, and competitive sailing. Or at least something along these lines of diversity.

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