
Desingineer – the mythical person every startup is looking for - Brajeshwar
http://brajeshwar.com/2011/desingineer-the-mythical-person-every-startups-are-looking-for/
======
tibbon
I am a designineer. The problem is that it doesn't make you an expert of all
skills. Jack of all trades, master of none.

While I took AP CS in high school, I can't rattle off the to O-notation of
most algorithms. While I took plenty of art and design classes over the years,
I'm no Jony Ives.

But, its not about what I can't do in my mind, but what I can do. I learn most
things very quickly. I'm decent in Ruby and can get stuff done. I can get
around Photoshop decently. I'm good at understanding what the customer wants
and the product needs. I know how the pieces glue together. I don't mind
meeting with VCs, talking to customers or interviewing people.

Yet contrary to popular belief, I don't find people bashing down my door. I
don't have the sexiest Github account. The startups I've worked for aren't
huge. When I'm asked what I do I reply, "Coding, marketing, product and
design". Then they ask if I'm a Java or Ruby coder with 4-7 years of solid
experience and a CS background.

Maybe the difference is I don't see myself as being a "full stack" guy, but a
"full company" guy. I understand what everyone needs to be doing, and I have
(often good) ideas of how a problem might be approached better.

I personally see myself as a huge asset to any company. I often end up doing
the productivity of 2-3 people with more traditional backgrounds, but its a
really hard sell honestly. I could try selling myself as a manager I suppose,
but I'm not sure.

~~~
danielmason
I suspect the scarcity of your skillset is the main contributor to your
relative scarcity of opportunities. At a previous company I helped found, we
realized that we were trying to find people who were pretty good designers,
front-end developers, and really good on the phone with clients for support
stuff. We didn't have the margins to split these into different roles, and
that was the insight that allowed me to realize that our revenue model was
fundamentally broken. It's not that these people don't exist, it's that you
can't design your business around reliably finding them. So maybe you're left
with a handful of startups who are able to find a place for you because they
recognize your value and adapt, not because they had planned on finding you in
the first place.

~~~
tibbon
Your last sentence has been my experience so far. Essentially, when a company
gets me, they seem to realize that month that they got more than they expected
and its a good thing.

One thing I've noticed about _some_ (not all clearly) people who are very good
at one thing (let's say back end programming) is they might not really want to
do something totally different. Dealing with customers? Writing documentation?
Writing front end javascript? Its a bit like pulling teeth.

I don't mind in the least. Documentation writing is great. Making beautiful
products is great. Listening to customers (and investors) is great. And yea, I
like coding too!

~~~
danielmason
Same, except I don't really enjoy writing documentation. :) I posted my full
thoughts in a separate post, but I'm looking for a job, and every job
description I read makes me feel like I'm at a crossroads where I have to pick
something to give up and something to get better at.

~~~
tibbon
I would really like to have some people post that are looking for someone like
you or I, and how someone can actually make themselves the best candidate, or
even find such positions. I know how to find standard programming gigs. That
isn't a problem.

I keep hearing about the demand, but I keep not seeing it. Unicorns looking
for unicorns?

------
asolove
I think the problem is not that one person can't have both of these skills,
but that it is hard to play both roles on the same project unless you have a
lot of discipline.

The engineering mindset and the UX design mindset optimize for different
things. Even if you are excellent at both, it helps to have someone else
forcing you to get the UX right when you're doing the engineering work, and to
make the engineering possible when doing the design work.

The people who can do both at the same time don't differ in having both skills
-- lots of people have them -- but in having the discipline to optimize for
both in alternation.

~~~
moe
_but that it is hard to play both roles on the same project unless you have a
lot of discipline._

For me it's less of a discipline issue and more of a time issue.

Both the backend and the frontend take a lot of quality time to do them right.
It's simply not effective to have a single person context-switch between them,
even when said person is very good at both. I.e. this is one of the situations
where two people can indeed produce a given result nearly twice as fast.

However, I also agree that on top of that discipline plays a role, too.

While wearing the engineer-hat you have to constantly force yourself to stick
with the brain-damaged abstractions that comprise todays "state-of-the-art"
and not give in to the urge of fixing them bottom-up.

I.e. when both front- and backend are in your hands then the temptation to
make the frontend truly model-driven can quickly become overwhelming (auto-
generate those stupid forms and validations! why mirror when we could just
rpc!). Sadly more often than not this results in a huge time-sink, as you
embark in an uphill battle against a tool-chain that's strongly optimized for
the exact opposite.

~~~
mr_luc
This is the best comment so far, I think, because it highlights why a designer
+ engineer, even a theoretical 'designeneer' equally skilled at both, isn't
_necessarily_ going to be twice as valuable, and in fact may be only as
valuable as a single engineer or a single designer.

I believe strongly in the value that knowing both can give you, and for
certain classes of small project it's a huge win.

But you're right: context-switching is a limiter. You only have so much free
time and mental energy.

For me, I know that I prefer working with competent UX/visual design guidance.
I can get some really pretty results from doing my own designs, but it's a
wonderful freedom to know that I'll spend 15 minutes in the morning iterating
on a piece of paper with a designer today, and then just go away and do my
thing. I'll get a PSD that will make the prototype UI more concrete late-
afternoon, and the next morning we can talk about how using the UI makes us
want to change it.

But if I was doing it all myself? I doubt that even with twice the time, the
overall result would be equal, either on the code or the design side.

That designer keeps all of his visual design acumen and photoshop 'muscle
memory' loaded into cache.

I keep my emacs key-chords, the code's secret sauce, my bash and git aliases
and the topography of staging environments loaded into my cache.

There are definitely projects that exist where you can 'do it all', but ...
node.js' model is great for maximizing throughput, but when you've got
drastically different types of work, that's what you have multiple cores for.
;)

------
evlapix
I recently applied at a YC funded startup. Their job description had the most
random combination of front-end/back-end technologies that exactly matched my
recent focuses, and said absolutely nothing about design. I considered myself
extremely qualified.

I received a call the following day and was told I was a top candidate. As the
interviews progressed with each founder (3 of them), I started to get the
impression that they also wanted a designer. I was super careful about
managing their expectations and let them know I wouldn't count on my design
skills for anything more than "not ugly".

I didn't get an offer.

This is the second time in my very remote, limited experience I've speculated
a startup hiring stereotype that has later been echoed in the community. I've
convinced myself that both indicate the lack of experience that startup
founders have in hiring. Yet another reason I suspect founders can't find
talent. After all, what kind of established, motivated and passionate,
developer/designer would want to bet their livelihood on a startup that
doesn't pay well, isn't clear about its expectations, and shows signs of
inexperience?

~~~
ootachi
Sounds like you dodged a bullet. The founders probably weren't going to give
their first employee the kind of equity they were going to give themselves,
despite the fact that their first employee would have to be more qualified
than they were.

------
aspir
Every freelancer in my area is, by this definition, a "Desingineer." I'm in
the midwest, so there's almost no other way to get work other than go full
stack. Obviously, some are better at the back end and some are better
designers, but they have to do it all.

Honestly, this reinforces the issue that startups do a poor job of recruiting
outside of their 20 mile radius. For example, its early in the office, and I
still see 5 people who have pushed high level applications, good front ends,
and the occasional mobile app.

~~~
sandieman
have built a company in the middle of the country as well, and know this
freelance type. Typically they are "okay" at design and "okay" at development.
They work well for local small businesses but not for startups looking for top
caliber design.

~~~
jsavimbi
Most startups aren't looking for, and shouldn't be looking for, top caliber
design. It costs too much and usually provides no measurable value for an
immature product.

~~~
rmc
_It costs too much_

Simple! Pay 'em less & give 'em equity!

~~~
rmc
_ahem_ maybe I should have put </sarcasm> tags around that. I don't believe in
this, burger there are those alas that do.

------
bigohms
I have about 14 years into my career as a web guy who can code (front to
back), design killer UI and create, execute and grow business strategy.

What that being set! "being" a generalist is not for everyone.

There are some things to note:

1\. Keeping up with all three is a LOT of work. Understanding the latest
javascript libraries, deployment tech, UI tools and successful business models
take a ton of time. I roughly spend 15-30 hrs a week trying new things our,
designing or running spreadsheets not to mention the meetups and whatnot.

2\. Every startup is looking for this person because they can enable so many
parts of the success equation in one, self-contained shot. They add more value
per square inch at critical phases of business growth that is a considerable
asset. As a startup grows, this is personality turns into an optimal product
lead, who can drive major decisions and participate in meaningful discussions
with teams, investors and press.

3\. Large corporations are not tuned to need or understand your services,
unless you are accomplished in mid- to senior-level management positions.

4\. You can visualize and eval business ideas quickly, then be able to
communicate them to specialists with ease. I can't tell you the number of
times being able to verbalized the need for a linked list or onHover whatever
has made communcation easier with people who I bring to help me execute. This
makes you a better implementer who is respected by counterparts and team
members. Business folk quickly grasp CLV and burn margins when deciding to
invest or advise.

4\. You don't necessarily become an expert in everything. In fact, it's near
impossible. I've had to focus of two or three major activities and fine tune
my skills. This could mean I will be specializing in the future.

5\. You don't get rest. The world is moving quickly, technology even faster.
There are millions of able and hungry people willing to execute on their great
ideas every single day. That means I have to keep moving or lose my flow. I
can probably point to 7 or so ideas that were launched in the time I was
evaluating the opportunity with 3 that have gone onto real growth.

~~~
synnik
I'm 21 years into my career myself, so the web is younger than my carrer. At
this point, I do full stack development as well.

And... I think you are taking on more than you need to for the discussion at
hand.

If you are an excellent JS programmer, you don't need to keep up on the latest
libraries. You can code what you need yourself. Sure, maybe you do something
from scratch that could have been done with a newer library, but the 10 hours
you lose there is more than made up by not having to do those 15 hours a week
keeping up.

Likewise on your other tech points. Constantly churning your toolkit doesn't
speed you up. It slows you down. There is a balance to be found where you keep
up "enough", but still focus the majority of your time on delivering work.

I choose to spend a day or so each month trying to keep up, then roll with
what I know for a while.

Likewise with some of your other activities. Meetups and business models? They
may help you be a consultant, but that is adding yet a 4th role to the topic
at hand.

Many of your other points also apply more to a consultant than a heads-down
designer/coder.

In general, it sounds like you are trying to be an even rarer breed. More
power to ya, but it may be overkill for most people.

~~~
bigohms
Good points and fitting as right now a large portion of my personal income is
consultant based.

------
geekfactor
This is wrong. Everyone knows that modern startups are looking for a
Desingineerketer.

~~~
jpdoctor
Sir, you are mistaken: We are in the market for a
Desingineerketertesteraccountant.

(Is this how German got started?)

~~~
dgabriel
My beloved was a German major once upon a time, and he assures me that this is
exactly how German got started... or at least it's how German works.

------
davesims
I do all of those, and I am definitely _not_ a genius. Nor all that rare. Most
of the projects I've worked on in the last 5 years have had several devs who
could go end-to-end, and the ones that weren't were working towards that goal.

It's really not rocket surgery, it's just a matter of applying yourself over
time and every few months acquire new skills in an essential area. CSS, JS,
Ruby, TCP/IP, HTTP/REST, UI/UX, SQL, design patterns, on and on. Set em up and
knock em down. Be a generalist, but be a very good one.

It's not that hard to accomplish over time and it keeps you engaged longer.
Heck, it's just more fun. I'm an 'older' coder and taking that approach I
think has kept me from getting bored, kept me sharp and also kept me from
feeling like all these young'uns is passin me by. Hey! Get off my lawn...

~~~
hkarthik
Great comment, Dave.

Would you say over the years that you've oscillated between points of the
stack, based on the needs of your current team? I've found that to be the case
for me.

At my last job I did a lot of front end work, at my current gig I'm focused on
the backend. I enjoy the oscillation and try to keep interesting side projects
where I focus on the opposite of what I do in my day job.

~~~
davesims
Yeah, absolutely. It's been a matter of looking for new opportunities to do
something out of my comfort zone. If you've been doing Rails for a year and an
opportunity comes up to do some mobile stuff, take it. If you've been doing
css/html for months and someone needs a SQL migration written, do it. If
someone needs to configure Passenger/Apache/Resque, etc., be the guy. Get
comfortable in Photoshop or Gimp enough to knock out an icon or two. Sketch
out wire frames for Product for your next feature if someone already hasn't.

There's usually an opportunity to do all this stuff over time, you just have
to be willing to jump on it when it comes up.

------
pg
They're not entirely mythical. I was this person for Viaweb, and YC has funded
several founders who are both hackers and designers.

~~~
balsam
Desingineers who are willing not to be founders could still be mythical. (And
I think that's what the article was talking about)

------
creativeembassy
I've been working hard at being this guy. HTML+CSS+JS(coffee!)+Ruby, years of
professional experience doing UX and website design on whiteboards and
Photoshop and Illustrator, successfully launching brand-new projects.

I also know a few guys I've worked with that are very strong in the same
areas. It's more pleasurable to work with a team where every member will do
well in all areas, even if we have a core area that we would prefer to be an
expert in. I don't believe those people are mythical or hard to find.

The myth is that startups want those people, but don't have enough money to
afford them. They want desingineers that are cheap. I'm personally tired of
seeing "stock options" in startups that don't have a product yet.

------
thinker
I'm a desingineer - ux, visual design, solid on front-end and okay on backend.
Just wanted to point out its not all a bed of roses.

For the last month I've been interviewing at some really amazing startups.
What I've found is that I have no problem getting interviews at some of the
best startups (>50% response rate) because well everyone wants someone who can
code and design . The problem is that I have to fight an uphill battle to
prove that I'm not just a designer that writes HTML/CSS. There is ALWAYS the
question of "so...how good are your frontend skills?" with an intonation of
doubt. No one actually bothers to ask or determine about the level of your
design skills. Another question is "which one do you prefer?". I really hate
that question because it shows you don't understand what a product focused
engineer is.

Positive response _really_ depends on the stage of a startup. I'm finding that
teams between 5-20 are looking more for specialists in design and engineering.
Any smaller or bigger and a desingineer becomes a very valuable role to fill.
So feeling I'm missing out on opportunities at some great startups cause of
this phenomenon. Would e interested to know if anyone else has experienced
this?

It's definitely causing me to think about my career path. Do I focus on one or
the other? I know I am not great at both and that is because I have to spread
myself thin in both areas and dont know the best tools and practices as well
as I should.

Being a desingineer makes it really easy to start your own thing be it a
startup or side project - I've done it a few times myself. However, sometimes
you need financial stability, or are waiting for a significant idea, or just
want to work with other really smart people on an idea with traction to gain
more experience.

So we aren't unicorns and it's definitely not a double-rainbow life.

------
geebee
I'm coming a little late to this discussion, but I do think that as much as
startups want "desingineers", the hiring process makes it very unlikely that
they will ever get one.

I remember reading Scott Adams's advice on how to get into the top 1% (well,
reallu the top .0..1%). One way is to be incredibly good at one thing - like
Roger Federer. The other way is to keep combining interesting and related
things until you're there - ie., someone in the top 10% at coding, design,
sales, biology, and construction.

Here's the thing - recently, we've been discussing the willingness of
companies trying to hire to accept "false negatives" because the impact of a
bad hire is so detrimental to a team. But I think a lot of "false negatives"
may be coders who do _pretty_ well in the interview but not quite well enough
to get past the filter. The interview process almost never gets at their other
skills. So the company fails to hire someone with exceptional domain
experience and good design skills because he or she struggled a bit finding
cycles in a linked list.

There are solutions for people like this. One is to be a founder - get an
idea, start coding and designing, create an initial app, and see what kind of
traction you can get. The other is very similar - you'll managed to get hired
somewhere eventually, and you can start proposing projects. Eventually, you'll
get to run with one, and you can be entrepreneurial about it (well less upside
but at least you'll have a salary).

It's much easier to do this on your own or once you're established with a
company. It's tough to get this across in an interview process.

~~~
bad_user
There is a third option that is more accessible than building your own
products - consulting.

Clients seeking consultants have different interviewing tactics, even though
the clients themselves have an engineering background. A good consultant is
too expensive / too busy to be asked about detecting loops in linked lists or
about how many balls can fill a bus. Therefore for a consultant references and
a portfolio are what's taken into account.

And these can be built through hard work. At first you could build something
for demonstration purposes and open-source it. Or you could work on a project
pro-bono. Of course, consulting requires good marketing skills - but we are
talking about generalists here.

~~~
geebee
That's a really good point, and reminds me of some thoughts I had last time I
was at the white board explaining the difference between composition and
inheritance. I was irritated as crap to be doing it, but I also realized that
my irritation should be with myself. Even if I'm not a rock-star programmer
with huge contributions to open source, I _should_ , by this point, have a
body of work that speaks louder than a technical interview.

Part of the problem is that many programmers still don't get to do open source
work (I couldn't have revealed the source code to what I was working on at the
time in an interview), whereas many other fields (design in particular)
provide more opportunity to show off your work publicly. But there is a choice
here, and as you've pointed out, it's important to make sure that at least
_some_ of your work is publicly available.

Even "demo" sites don't strictly need to be demo anymore - a small "real" app
can be created, deployed, and used, even if the main purpose was to show off
skills.

------
brianchesky
When I worked as an industrial design, we had a similar person on staff that
sat at the intersection of design and engineering - we call this person a
design engineer.

We have this role at Airbnb.

------
sbisker
About six years ago, I decided to become a "desingineer", by accident. Here's
how it went down:

After getting a BS and M.Eng in Computer Science, everyone was pleased as
punched to let me code for them. But I wanted to code and _design_ interfaces
as well. What a strange idea - a programmer also making the interfaces.

Well, it turned out no one would take me seriously unless I had designed
interfaces in a professional environment before. I needed someone that would
take a chance on me, to actually let me design their UIs while hiding me away
in their software team. (I managed to find _one_ job that would, and for that
I'm forever grateful.)

Once I picked up some experience designing UIs, the top companies wouldn't
would take me seriously until I had some formal design training and
credentials. So, I went back for a degree in Interaction Design.

Once I finished my degree, the top companies wouldn't take me seriously until
I shipped some code that had my own designs in it. So I did that for a while,
in a few hybrid dev/designer positions.

Once I shipped my code, the top companies wouldn't take me seriously until I
had shipped a design of my own creation that was also my own (so, owning the
UI, UX, code and business strategy). So I got back into entrepreneurship
(something I'd largely given up with my pure CS focus), and started creating
and shipping my own designs.

Now, as an entrepreneur, interaction designer and computer scientist, the top
companies won't take me seriously until I start shipping designs of my own
creation that are also visually stunning. Working on it. :)

\--------------------

Only now, six years later, do I realize that no one will ever take you
seriously unless they can _define_ you. Programmers can be understood, and
slotted. They have real, respected career paths. Designers can be understood,
and slotted. They have real, respected career paths as well. Even Interaction
Designers are slowly becoming understood.

Being a desingineer, while bringing me incredible amounts of joy, also feels
absolutely terrible - because people are constantly coming along with ideas of
what you can or should bring to an organization. The limits of the position
are such unknowns, in fact, that sometimes people feel desingineers should be
_everything_ to everyone.

Sometimes that comes out of with a sense of greed - after all, it's on the
desingineer to prove they _shouldn't_ have to do all of those things, right?
And, in fact, they feel _entitled_ to everything. Early-stage startups are
particularly bad about this, I've noticed - their "first designer hire" posts
often forget that everyone starts somewhere. (Sorry, but it's true.)

But other times people simply misunderstand how long it takes to become good
at each of the individual skill sets involved. And other times companies are
still sorting out what skill sets their companies actually _need_ in the same
person.

\-------------------

Is there anything we can do, as a community, to bring some clarity and
definition to "desingineering" - so kids coming out of school don't have to go
through what I have gone through? It's obvious that this is a position that
companies need, but it's not one that will be treated with respect until its
own practioners - a fair number of whom seem to be on HN - actively come
together to help define it.

~~~
moocow01
I think in general, being a generalist in any field puts a ceiling on your
career path after a while. And like you said the ceiling is not so much about
the generalist being mediocre at many things, its more about others getting
confused about how you would be best moved up the career track. But the
problem with the concept of a career track is that you are on a track defined
by other people. I'd say the only way out is go your own way as you have -
career tracks all eventually end somewhere. As a generalist you have a much
broader perspective on how to create your own track and a much better vision
as to what direction best suits you. I think probably the best way we can
encourage up and coming tech generalists is to encourage them to get
frustrated with the status quo and to become entrepreneurs. As a result
hopefully the next generation of companies will have a deeper appreciation of
the competitive advantage of multi-disciplined people.

~~~
bad_user
Entrepreneurs that are engineers and don't have a designer as a cofounder have
no choice but to become desingineers.

Generalists _are_ considered to be mediocre (jack of all trades, master of
none). I don't know why though - maybe it's because many developers calling
themselves specialists in a domain are doing the same thing for 5-10 years in
a row and it's scary when other people take a different path.

~~~
modoc
The obvious other choice is to hire a designer or a design firm as needed (or
depending on what you need, buy a design template to get you going).

~~~
acgourley
This helps with some of the big, important things. But running a company will
present you with a dozen of design challenges. A month. You can't just deal
with these all contractually.

~~~
modoc
It depends greatly on your company.

------
badclient
_you should try splitting it into (i) a designer who does HTML, CSS (ii) a
programmer and (iii) perhaps even a separate Javascript coder._

This is how the company I work for right now does it and it is EXTREMELY
inefficient. I've been advocating them to go back to one person to do
html/css/js/php.

I can see the above work for large orgs. But with a 3-4 person tech team,
super specialization has not worked at all

~~~
scottschulthess
What's inefficient about it? Usually this doesn't work if your process sucks.
The way I've seen it work well is:

Designer starts on the project a week ahead of programmer. Gathers
requirements (with the programmer tagging along). Does paper sketches which
get a general a-ok from everyone.

Does html prototype, ideally already in rails.

Hands off to developer, developer wires up. Over time they iterate together on
the same codebase.

~~~
badclient
So in your model there is only a designer and a developer? At my work, we have
someone for each specialty: 1. design 2. html 3. backend like php 4. js.

Your designer seems to do both (1) and (2) which is more manageable and
something I've had work well. Likewise, your programmer seems to do both (3)
and (4).

The problems arise when you need to tweak a small feature. You end up needing
four-five people(if you count product manager) to touch it to make the change
happen. It's not efficient at least for a web start-up(I can see it work for
larger enterprises).

~~~
TheSOB88
Just being nitpicky, but I think you misread the OP. He said one person does
design _and_ HTML, which is exactly what you're saying.

~~~
brown9-2
Pretty sure badclient said that the company has one person each for HTML, CSS,
JS and PHP.

That does sound pretty nuts - seems like almost every layout/front-end/design
change you'd ever need to make would touch both HTML and CSS, requiring two
people to handle it separately.

~~~
kd5bjo
He didn't say CSS, he said design. That could just as easily be Photoshop
mockups, with CSS lumped into the HTML job.

------
_delirium
I suppose it's a bit of a lost battle in the web space, but I find it weird
when the jobs are broken into "programmer/engineer", who does implementation,
and "designer", who does UI/frontend stuff. In other areas of engineering, a
lot of things other than the final aesthetics, or even just the UI, are called
"design"; when you "design" a power plant, that's not purely implementation,
but is heavily tied to the engineering. Surely any nontrivial webapp also has
that kind of design as well, something more like product design? And it seems
like you _do_ want engineers who are also able to do that.

------
ck2
Anyone that talented is probably starting their own startup.

~~~
cloudhead
You might think that, but not everyone is interested in the business side of
things.

------
danielmason
I might be considered a larval Designineer. I started off as a visual
designer, then learned HTML and CSS, then Javascript, then out of necessity
began maintaining an old ASP Classic codebase. As soon as I started to
understand the code I was reading, things got easier. Then I built a small
data-backed web app and I was totally hooked. In the last two years, I've
learned to build nontrivial web apps from the ground up. SQL, MVC, Backbone,
UI, design. I'm pretty proficient at each level of the stack, but only insofar
as it's related to the web. Eg. I know C#, but I wouldn't have the first clue
about how to write a native Windows application. So I end up feeling like my
knowledge is the proverbial mile wide and inch deep.

I'm looking for jobs right now, and it's been an exercise in frustration. The
coding jobs require CS degrees, 5 years of experience, tech interviews with
big-O notation and data structures (trying to teach myself basic CS theory,
but need a job now). The UI and design jobs require a smidge of front-end
knowledge, but are mostly mocking and wireframing. I want to be able to employ
all of my tools, but I feel like the hiring market makes me pick between being
a front-end or a back-end guy, and I don't currently have enough
specialization at either to get a reasonably good job.

How can I find companies that could use someone like me, when their job
descriptions are specialized? Any thoughts or advice?

------
namank
Anyone on here have any insights on HOW to get there?

IME, you need certain attitudes towards life to get good at both.

You need to be a visionary AND an engineer. Usually people are one or the
other and prefer it because they suck less at it. Hence, they eventually get
great at it. But this means the other suffers. To be in the designer+engineer
category, you first need to figure out what you are good at (essentially what
you spend a large chunk of your time on - dreaming or coding) and then what
you are weak at.

Then practice doing the weak thing for a couple of years.

Pretty soon, you are a designeer.

Problem is, in the startup world, I still can't figure out WHY you should be
both when you can hire people to complement your weakness. Steve Jobs was
obviously only a visionary and he, through practice, became great at it.
Dennis Ritchie, an engineer.

Unless, of course, startup is not your endgame. Unless your goal is self-
improvement powered by a zesty thirst for knowledge. In my limited knowledge,
though Learnado Da Vinci fell into the designeer category, he was still very
much an idea person (visionary) than an engineer - mainly because he
procrastinated like crazy with his projects (for years, at times). This shows
that he preferred conceptualizing the project and loved cultivating the vision
rather than actually implement it.

Thoughts? Please give me some feedback, this stuff is important.

~~~
neilk
Jobs was not "only" a visionary. Before Apple, Jobs worked at Atari as a
technician. He would get assigned tasks like designing circuit boards. If you
consider the early days, Jobs only looks like a business guy if you stand him
next to Woz.

Anyway, I think I can say without exaggeration that I'm better than average in
both engineering and design. At least for me, I think you have to be born that
way -- you get pleasure both from aesthetics, and from solving problems. And
when left alone by a world that sees both as separate, you just do your thing.

I started got a computer when I was 11. Other people played games. It seemed
completely natural to me to spend almost all my time programming pretty
graphics demos.

But how do you get any better? I think you have to be the kind of person who
seeks challenges, who seeks a ladder to climb.

For computing, I think we all know that drill. Open source has made it so that
you can start anywhere and go all the way to OS development, if that's what
you want. You can also get work (even if you have little experience) and use
other people's resources to educate yourself.

For design, it's a bit harder. Perhaps I was lucky in that I continually
wavered between science and engineering, and design and journalism.

In my teens and early 20s, I was the production/layout guy at student
newspapers. So I could educate myself, with thousands of dollars of other
people's money, in a way that was almost ridiculously unsupervised. That
sharpened my appreciation for typography, photography, design, etc., as well
as gave me some experience managing people, budgets and deadlines. But I guess
that other people in that role might not have gone as crazy as I did for the
design aspect. Especially for the entertainment sections (where design was
allowed to be more fun) I was trying to top myself with every single issue
that I did. You know that you're doing it right when (a) the bloody thing
actually makes printing deadline, week after week (b) you walk around the
university and you see people putting your layouts up as a poster.

------
moocow01
I would guess this has become a trend based on the following...

1) Entrance of lower quality, inexperienced founders who want an end product
and only know about the buzzwords that supposedly go into building that
product. They don't have an expert grasp on the development process so they
naively think the process is to collect a group of people with all skills.

2) The advances in work process efficiencies make it easier to do different
jobs in tech. Consequently, this makes it much more possible for 1 person to
wear many hats somewhat more effectively. 10 to 20 years ago, these sort of
job descriptions would be 100% insane because it took so much more out of the
different disciplines to put software together. It would be like a hospital
posting a job opening for a doctor who can also drive the ambulance.

On the 2nd point it makes me wonder if eventually at some point in the future
the startup team along with the need for venture capital will be obsolete. If
we follow the current trajectory, I could see building tech startups being
more and more the domain of one to a couple people with slim to none capital
requirements.

~~~
radagaisus
I think it's possible for most of the web-mobile projects today that aren't
too ambitious in their scale, with one caveat: servers cost a ton on money.

------
ookblah
Honestly, being a desingineer sucks at times.

The advantages of the "desingineer" is that you cut out a lot of red tape and
inefficiencies in the early stages. You can implement things much much faster
if you know both front/back and how they come together. IMO, this is crucially
important in the MVP/early stages of a startup where you don't have a lot of
resources and need to move quickly.

The downside to this (and what I'm slowly figuring out), is that there are
limits. It involves a lot of context switching. Someone else mentioned it but
it's true... you only have so many hours a day and it's insanely hard trying
to become proficient at design, ui/ux, and programming.

What ends up happening is that you "feel" like you're mediocre at everything,
and when your startup is growing that feeling SUCKS. I would much rather have
a small team where we each specialize (with some overlap of course) in what we
can be excellent at.

------
mmcconnell1618
As a desingineer I'm always looking for the mythical startup that has cool
technology, awesome people and a good chance to rocket to the moon. Probably
as hard to find as desingineers.

~~~
redcircle
That's awesome. Of course, if we just want money, prestige, and success, then
that is what we want. But if we want opportunities to grow, then the startup
should be a challenge demanding our best to achieve success --- it should not
be an easy ride on others' abilities. And the same goes for finding the
desingineer --- if a founder wants to address a prime responsibility of
running a company, and control their culture, then part of their legacy is the
people that they help grow and to flourish into the desingineer.

------
rglover
As a designer, I personally prefer taking any design straight to code (mainly
because making iterations to Photoshop designs is a nightmare and frankly a
waste of time). I think the thing that helped me most was that I started
learning design by coding (i.e. I started writing XHTML/CSS alongside learning
design principles). Being about four years in now, it's great to be able to
get a project and say "yeah, I can code that." It really just takes time and
patience. While my coding experience is mainly focused around front-end
development, what I've learned from the front-end has helped me to feel
comfortable with Wordpress and PHP. I think the best way to become a
"Desingineer" is to constantly have some project that challenges you, whether
paid or not (preferably not as there is less pressure to get things right).

------
malandrew
I would think that the type of person that is a designgineer is likely to be
informally trained, usually starting as a design person and becoming
increasingly more technical over time.

Because of this, I reckon they would do poorly at a lot of the types of
technical interviews that are in fashion today, such as puzzle interviews and
data structure/algorithm questions that you'd probably only do well with if
you had a computer science background.

"Tell me how you would go about building an efficient maze generator" is the
wrong kind of question for these people. "How would you go about building
token-field interface from scratch in javascript" would be a better question.

Sites like InterviewStreet and CodeSprint don't optimize for hiring this kind
of person.

~~~
samwillis
I think you are right, I suspect that is a drive to invent things and a
passion for technology, that is at least how it works for me:

web design as a kid + DT at school + always inventing things -> Industrial
Design at uni -> interest in developing product from both the user facing side
and technology behind it.

------
mrjasonroy
I read these unicorn articles and at first think, hey, I'm one of those guys,
meaning it can't be that hard. I am no genius, just a decently hard working
individual that tends that likes to do things right. I feel comfortable in
both worlds, I lead a design team and also lead the direction of _some_ of the
engineering efforts of a decent size team (20+).

That being said, it's hard to do both at scale or really well. One is going to
suffer as soon as the project gets to a decent size, I notice this every time
I try and do it myself. So, props to people who can produce extremely high
quality code and designs, that takes a serious focus.

------
phzbOx
And be wary of people who _say_ they are great coders and designers. In most
cases, it's more _half_ designer and _half_ engineer; meaning you'll have an
ugly design and a messy code.

------
jsiarto
Ok, first of all--if you're a designer and your primary area of design is for
the web--you damn well better be able to hand-code HTML and CSS. If not, you
push pixels in Photoshop--and that's not design.

Designing for the web requires that you understand the limitations of HTML and
CSS and not push our crap from Photoshop that would be a nightmare to
implement.

When we're talking about "desingeers" are we talking about designers that can
write markup and style or designers that can code out a great Rails backend?

------
amix
The real issue is that mastering something takes an awful long time - 10.000
hours or 10 years from what I have read (Malcolm Gladwell, Peter Norvig,
various research). Most people aren't willing to put in this effort and most
people aren't willing to suck at something for years, therefore they focus on
the thing they are good at.

Maybe we could become awesome at multiple things if we are willing to invest
10 years into learning something instead of investing a few weeks.

------
wpietri
I think the mistake is in structuring the company so that people have to be
awesome on _both_ axes. Either that, or so they're _forbidden_ to become good
at both.

Every developer is a designer. (You can't make something without thinking
about it at least a little.) Every designer can be a developer if they want.
Both skills take plenty of practice.

Nobody is likely to be 100% amazing at both, but that doesn't matter: a lot of
day-to-day work is pretty mundane, so nobody has to be amazing all the time.
As long as you have somebody great that you collaborate with frequently, you
can still get a great product, and everybody gets to up their game over time.

Skill-based division of labor is fine for assembly-line products, but for
iterative, creative work (which is what all startups are), I think you need
intense collaboration, which requires broad skills. That's why IDEO, a design
powerhouse, looks for what they call t-shaped people:
[http://chiefexecutive.net/ideo-ceo-tim-brown-t-shaped-
stars-...](http://chiefexecutive.net/ideo-ceo-tim-brown-t-shaped-stars-the-
backbone-of-ideoae%E2%84%A2s-collaborative-culture)

It's a cheesy name, but I think the idea's spot on.

------
samwillis
I think I must fit into some super set of this somewhere.

My day job is as a physical product design engineer for a consultancy and have
a degree in Industrial Design. So I would do the mechanical and aesthetic
design of a product including Injection Moulding, Sheet metal, machining ect.
which is not to dissimilar to someone doing the user interface and back-end of
the software/web product.

What makes me a little different is that I spend my evenings doing web
development and although I have never done it "professionally" I think I am
probably allot better than most at the front end development using html, css
and javascript (I do like a dash of coffee script). I also have a fair bit of
experience with Python on the back end mostly using Django but have also more
recently been experimenting with Gevent and web-sockets to do some interesting
live updating stuff.

So I suppose I'm a bit of an odd ball, I can't work out how to get both the
physical product design and all my interest in web development (front and back
end) into one job. I think I will just have to invent a job for myself that
does...

EDIT: I guess I'm a web-mech-prod-desingineer...

------
droithomme
Reasonable article, this is fairly well known as an issue, but definitely does
good to bring it up again since a lot of places just don't get it.

Also goes without saying that the companies looking for this person also will
typically be requiring mastery of cross-platform application design
simultaneously targeting most every known desktop and mobile operating system;
a long, specific list of diverse technologies at very particular version
numbers; they should be willing to relocate at their own cost, with remote
work and telecommuting unacceptable; and of course they should be willing to
work for less than market rate for a practitioner of even one of the skills
they are supposed to be masters of, which should be no problem since there is
a low cost of living in the obscure one horse town they will be moving to but
which features lots of outdoor activities and family values as long as you
don't mind the rampant small town corruption, house break ins, ATV, copper
wire and catalytic converter theft, weekly stabbings over a girl, and pandemic
meth addiction.

------
Homunculiheaded
I was discussing this issue with a friend the other day. I think the real
'why' is there is no motivator to become good at both design and development.
Both skills take people who are passionate about what they do, usually to the
point where they hone their skills in their free time. I actually think most
(good) devs and designers have slight inclinations towards each others work,
but it is a serious effort to go from "that does look cool/useful" to
professional proficiency. The few people who are currently 'designineers' are
mostly likely completely passionate about both (which is their motivator).
However for the rest why put in the effort? My understanding is that the pay
isn't much different (in fact this sounds a lot like, "wouldn't it be great if
I could get 2 for the price of 1"). Easier to find a job? Perhaps, but right
now I think good designers and developers are having no trouble finding work.
Additionally your skill set is now the target of tons of people looking to get
something for nothing, or have one person doing 10 jobs

------
ntomkin
It's funny that this is a thing now. In the early days of the web, being a
Designineer was a necessity to get anything done in most web-type companies.

Some will say, "well, you probably aren't on level with a rockstar coder."
This is probably true, although my clients are very happy. I can wireframe,
design and code a large-scale web app without having to consult a single
person (other than the client, of course).

I am starting my own web company now and I am finding that the Designineer
badge helps me in great ways. For example, I wanted to quickly create a
prototype to show a potential client a better way to go with their website.
Normally, in a web company of 5-10 people, this would require consulting a
coder, designer and whomever else is involved in the drafting of a project.
This could potentially tie up 2/3rds of the company for the possibility of
landing a new client. For me, this was all handled inside of a few hours and
it makes the company appear more staffed than it actually is.

------
wyck
Something not mentioned, people who are desingineers often gravitate to a
comfort zone with regards to money and ability. Let's face it, design is
subject to the whims of opinion and can take a really, really long time, code
on the other hand usually just works or doesn't.

Dealing with clients on design projects compared to code is like night and
day.

------
tedkimble
Engineering and designing are much more similar than they are different.

I recently completed a four-year graduate design degree (architecture) after a
lifetime of math, physics and not a whip of art or design experience. Here's
my take on this issue.

Engineering and design are both fundamentally processes of creation. While
both creations must meet one or more objectives, the types of those objectives
often differ. Engineers tend to optimize for quantitative objectives and
criteria; designers tend to optimize for qualitative objectives and criteria.

I think this difference has two significant consequences:

1\. The solution space for designers (or anything with qualitative criteria)
is much larger than for engineers. 2\. There are many more opportunities for
mediocre design than there are for mediocre engineering.

By point 2., I mean that not only is the solution space of design much larger,
but there are also many more "attractors" of solutions. In engineering, the
attractors have a strong pull and are more recognizable as such. And, because
the solution space is more quantifiable, the relations between those solutions
are more well understood and comparable.

In design, the attractors are more fuzzy and their locations in the solution
space are often unknown. This allows anyone who can find a mediocre design
solution (especially those who find "pretty" visual ones) to become a
"designer". But good designers must do much more. They must understand the
design space enough so that, from any starting point, they can justifiably
navigate towards that same design solution.

This involves crossing certain thresholds -- bifurcations -- in which the
nature of the design solution changes. Recognizing when to cross these
thresholds is, in my opinion, a task perfectly suited for analytical thinkers.
You don't need to be able to create visually pleasing designs to find the best
design solutions. Visual aesthetics are simply one component of optimizing the
already discovered design solution.

So my advice to engineers is this: forget about visuals. Design analytically,
question the existence of design components and their relationships. If you
cannot justify their existences and relationships, you need to somehow change
their nature (bifurcate the design) until you can justify it. Often starting
from the bottom-up is the best way to accomplish this.

Once a design solution is in sight, optimizing its visual aesthetics is much
easier -- you've already framed its problem so well!

Finally, I must note the three tasks which are essential to the design
process: research, experimentation and documentation. Surely these tasks are
also vital to engineers, or anyone else involved in processes of creation.

\---

(PS If anyone would like to talk about how many of the concepts of dynamical
systems theory can be used in the design process (and the design itself!), I'd
love to hear form you!)

~~~
thinker
I'd love to read your thoughts on this as a blog post - do you have one?

~~~
tedkimble
Thanks for the encouragement. I'm in the process of two related posts, but
they're not quite finished.

One is on my master's thesis and how a design can actually be the result of a
complex dynamical system. The other is on the process of navigated a design
state space during the web design process.

I'll be sure to post both here when they're completed.

------
nhangen
Amazing how many people are tooting their own horns in here. IMO, if you are
one, you don't claim it, people know by looking at your work. But anyway...

This has been my problem breaking into the industry. A few years ago I didn't
understand a lick of HTML/CSS and changed that by digging in and learning it.
Now I can build WP themes from scratch (not the most semantic, but I can still
do it), and write functions/code in PHP. Now I'm working on js and jQuery,
while also trying to learn the rest of the LAMP stack.

Still, it seems like every time I teach myself something new, a new skill is
added to the startup rockstar job requirement list. I get that startups want
to fill big holes, and that many pay accordingly, but this is why so many
junior level people decide to build their own companies instead of asking
permission to learn a little on the job.

~~~
jasonlotito
> IMO, if you are one, you don't claim it, people know by looking at your
> work. But anyway...

Except this is a discussion in text. Sure, yes, walking and talking are two
different things, but how else are you going to know what point of view
someone is speaking form unless then tell you in their comment? No reason to
assume people are just tooting their own horns for 'hn-cred'. Does your
comment mean so little you'd ruin it by belittling people?

As for the rest of your comment: to be fair, from the sounds of things, your
still very much new to all of this. You are a junior developer, and that's
nothing to be ashamed of. The problem is you are looking at these startup
rockstar job requirements and deciding for them. That doesn't mean you are
ready, but _you_ shouldn't be the one to decide that. After all, good
companies are always looking for good people. And while that position they
have posted might not be right for you, they might have another place for you.

> this is why so many junior level people decide to build their own companies

Maybe. I don't know, personally. That being said, though, is that starting
your own company requires another "rockstar" requirement list all it's own.
Don't fool yourself.

If you're put off by "startup rockstar job requirements," starting a company
won't be any easier.

~~~
nhangen
All I'm saying is that the proof is in the pudding, and I find it odd that 25%
of the people that had posted upon first read felt they could claim this
status. I believe it can be achieved, but the numbers seem very skewed here.

Anyway, I'm not ashamed of it at all. I went through a job search and had a
lot of bad luck. I'm not actually expecting to be given a rockstar job, but
even the local small-time shops have the same requirements. Every single
company I've seen is looking for the mysterious rockstar unicorn programmer.

So, after eventually finding a job, I decided to build a bunch of projects on
the side, and we're getting a lot of traction. If I were to claim rockstar
status at anything, it would be persistence. I guess you probably didn't look
at my bio.

------
mikeklaas
Just find a former technical founder that was by necessity forced to learn all
these skills.

That's how I became solid (but not expert-level) in distributed systems,
machine learning, web development, UX/UI design, and app dev.

Even for large teams, having people who have a deep understanding of all areas
of work is underrated.

~~~
pardner
Bingo. As soon as possible after building a product that starts getting
traction I build teams of people who are far better than me in every relevant
discipline who can sprinkle true awesomeness on their respective areas. From
that point my "deep understanding of all areas" (as you put it) gives me the
judgment to lead the team as we relentless prioritize efforts in the
individual aspects of the whole product. That skill set was valuable at least
through the IPO, twice.

Even before I started my own companies I was a product manager at a large
company, and groking the hardware, software, UX, manufacturing, and marketing
aspects of the product gave me uncommon influence with the real experts in
each of those domains -- because I had and could communicate that end-to-end
vision of what was possible.

------
radagaisus
Tip: don't read Web Design for Developers from the Pragmatic Programmers. It
was a good read, with a lot of basic stuff about color theory and typography,
but that's the final project: <http://www.yourfoodbox.com/>

I think websites in 1994 looked better.

------
ropman76
There are some out there that can do both but I find it to be very rare (and
thus should be highly paid). I have worked with some very artistic people in
the past who couldn't code to save their life. I always tell them "you make it
look good and I will make it work."

------
j_baker
I suppose one could break this issue down into one of breadth vs depth. You
probably _can_ find someone who can do both designing and engineering, but
unless you find one of those mythic geniuses, you're not going to get someone
who goes very deep in either one. I suppose this might be preferable to
certain businesses that just don't have that many deep, involved problems. Of
course, as a business grows more complex, you _need_ some specialization. You
just can't beat having someone who knows a problem inside and out.

Regardless, I think most startups who hire this way are trying to have their
cake and eat it too. It's probably part of the reason why some startups find
recruiting so difficult.

------
micheljansen
Mythical and wanted as may be, it is also one of the most misunderstood kind
of roles. Bigger companies are simply not used to combine design and
engineering in one role and try to push you into one (oh, you can code?). As a
jack of all trades, master of none, you are often not taken seriously by
either side and have to work twice as hard to prove yourself.

Once you do make it into the right places though, it is an incredibly fun and
diverse job. I take most of my satisfaction from the notion that I can go from
concept to (prototype) implementation on my own if I have to. It is one of the
most empowering feelings in the world.

------
kapilkale
I don't think startups want a desingineer, but rather an expert at one skill
(product UI/UX, engineering, marketing) with a pretty decent understanding of
a secondary skill area.

For example, I do a fair amount of design work in photoshop etc. I can
implement simple front-end stuff. But my co-founder can get complex front-end
engineering stuff done 5-10x faster if I just help him pair program it. If I
didn't understand code, we'd be unable to do that. Something similar probably
to be said about his sense of design since he often ends up giving me really
good feedback in the middle of building the page out.

------
pbiggar
I think a lot of this depends on what you mean by "backend". Personally, I
need a designer who can write the frontend. That means HTML/CSS, but it also
means JS (because what is a web app without JS these days). More importantly,
it means being able to work directly on the app without hand-holding - for
example, knowing where the CSS goes in a Rails project and being able to work
on it directly.

I wouldn't expect my designer to write a sorting algorithm, or a web crawler,
or anything that's more code-y, but HTML/CSS/JS and the frameworks which hold
them are part of the toolset.

------
alexwolfe
I've been working for startups a long time (over ten years) and I have only
met one person that I would consider a great designer and developer. I don't
think it is because others aren't capable but rather aren't interested or
forced to. This type of person is definitely a rare breed which is good. I
think a lot of people say they would like to fall into this position but in
reality probably not so much.

Please keep in mind that I have met quite a few people that dabble in
everything but a true professional at both is quite rare.

------
emp_
I have 15,000+ hours on each. My opinion is that good taste and intuition play
great value on code, best practices and testing do the same to UI/UX and so
on.

The funny drawbacks are usually that you can hardly win a discussion with
people that don't know you well since they will usually corner you on your
other 'personality' such as "says the interior decorator" when talking about
CQRS or REST etc.

I currently work on 'Evil Enterprise Contractor' building web-based products
but I too get to switch context all the time, from conception to live.

------
danso
I'd say the closest anyone has come to this was Steve Wozniak. He of course
built the first two Apples but also wrote the BASIC for ][ that would be used
for its thriving game ecosystem...and he wrote a few games himself.

I know the article in question is talking about front-end/back-end
design...but I'd argue that software and hardware engineering are just as
peripherally-related-yet-substantially-differentiated enough.

So, just find yourself another Steve Woz...

------
spullara
My cofounder at <http://bagcheck.com> had the perfect mix of skills. He is a
designer that also deeply understands HTML and CSS. He has some experience in
coding, but knows that he shouldn't focus on it and uses those tools only as
much as it helps him understand his medium. If you have have the chance to
work with @lukew, I highly recommend him.

------
bamazizi
i'm a designer/engineer and trust me there isn't anything mythical or special
about it.

i've been a web/graphics designer for 9-10 years and coder for 3.5 (python at
first, but this year i started ruby/rails)

from personal experience i can say almost all creative/visual people are
scared of logical/geekish computer stuff ... i was scared and lost at first
too but then i realized i'm quite good at architecture and once i put my focus
on becoming a better at it things weren't scary any more. my designs improved,
my love of internet expanded and i can't imagine doing anything else!

the most important mistake designer make is that they think they need to
become REAL "software engineers" like building compilers or even worse
thinking they have to master java or C++! (nothing against java, it's just
that designer shouldn't start with java or similar programming languages)

for all you designers first learn html5, css3, a bit of javascript and then
start with python/ruby (django/rails) and go from there. it's not a 1 night
journey, it will take couple of years but it's worth it!

------
dm8
Finding designers who can do front-end stuff (CSS, HTML, jQuery/JS) itself is
hard. And add the complexity of backend coding. These type of people are rare.
Quora had an interesting discussion on the topic of designers implementing
their own designs where lot of top guys in design have voiced their opinions -
<http://qr.ae/7vD>

------
agilebyte
Don't see a problem with becoming a generalizing specialist that sees the
whole picture from many facets - from marketing, business, coding, design
(product, pixel...). A startup needs people being willing to fill these roles
and if a said venture is successful (and becomes a business), you can afford
specialists, until then, I would expect people to have many roles.

------
kreek
They exist, but engineering pays so much more, while still filling the need to
create so 'Desingineers' choose development over design.

~~~
agilebyte
You mean pixel-pushing design or product design? And aren't majority of
Engineers really not just programmers?

I know what you mean and it is easy to pick issues, just wanted to state these
differences.

------
dfischer
My role is exactly this. I find it more the case because I like to be a "jack
of all trades" and understand the entire spectrum.

My true expertise lands in the front-end development side of things but I can
do it all. I prefer not to though. It's a job for multiple people. However,
having the ability to understand all the layers is a big plus when
managing/leading a team.

------
commieneko
It's often a good idea to have all these specialties be different people for
the same reason that writer, editor, and proofreader are optimally different
people. Now it doesn't hurt for all involved to have abilities and training in
all the above, but responsibility and focus can be enhanced by some creative
segregation.

------
sjsk
“Most people make the mistake of thinking design is what it looks like. People
think it’s this veneer – that the designers are handed this box and told,
‘Make it look good!’ That’s not what we think design is. It’s not just what it
looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” – Steve Jobs

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tzm
Yay, i'm a designineer. :D But.. i've been in the closet. I don't talk about
it much. In fact i've actually hidden the fact from others, masking my role by
making up imaginary coworkers to beef up the credibility of my one man shop.

No, I'm serious. That is not a joke. And it works.

------
epynonymous
i am proficient in html/html5, css/css2/css3, javascript, jquery, python,
mysql, nosql, but design is a whole different ball game. i know what looks
good, but i can't be bothered to create icons, banners, logos, color palletes,
and such in photoshop (?), provide guidance on margins, padding, font, layout,
etc. given a set of wireframes, colors, images, icons, font family, i can go
to town on a website, so i still believe in the need for a pure designer.

as for being able to add input into simplifying user experience, reducing
clicks, using certain jquery widgets over html elements, etc, i can provide
ample input. so it's really the visual piece that i lack. maybe it's time i
picked up a phtoshop or illustrator book for myself :)

anyone hiring?

------
lhnz
I don't think generalist's are as rare as this article makes out; I think most
people are born like this. However I'm certain that when we go to work we are
incentivised into becoming specialists. My assumption is that at scale
businesses will consider any variance in employees more trouble than it is
worth. As a result of this, if somebody wishes to market themselves to the
majority of the employment market they are more successful if they find a
niche to excel in. (Presumably once you've done this you start to think of
yourself as a specialist and forget your underlying potential to learn
multiple ways of thinking.)

Startups almost certainly would do well by hiring generalists but I doubt it's
often that they seek them. The demand for specialists will have altered the
supply of generalists in a way that probably makes searching for them costly.

I am a generalist although not a "Desingineer" as I haven't picked up very
many design-related skills. I personally disagree with many people in this
thread on what being a generalist means. Being a generalist does not mean you
have several discrete skills, and it does not mean you are a good a programmer
as a "programmer" or as good a marketer as a "marketer", etc. I think this
separation is a projection of a formal education. Instead I would describe
generalism as about having one big formless ability accrued from every
discipline you have studied. This is a potent skill as it gives you a broader
understanding of how things work and sometimes the cross-pollination of ideas
allows you to make much better decisions, and act in a way that others
consider wildly creative.

Of course, that's not to say that being a generalist is somehow better than
being a specialist. Unless you're a genius [1], specialists will often
outperform you in their area of expertise. It can also be a little depressing.
Sometimes it feels like you've taken 100 steps in a 100 directions and ended
up very close to where you started. However, it definitely has its pros -- for
me, it satisfies a thirst for all kinds of knowledge.

Ultimately the rigid distinction between specialist and generalist is
artificial. Few are pure generalists and few are pure specialists. I don't
worry that I will be held back by other's difficulty in fitting me into a
role. I might have multiple abilities but like most of you I have some which I
am slightly better at. I doubt that even the most fervent self-proclaimed
generalists can avoid becoming a little specialist at something. ;)

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymath>

------
dennyferra
I wonder how a progsysadmin would compare to the desingineer. I'd imagine it's
easier to find a progsysadmin just from my own experience. I've had a few jobs
where I was responsible for both the programming and system administration, in
small companies of course.

~~~
rhizome
That's more complicated due to the history of programming and sysadmin being
more closely intertwined, as you discovered. The first 20 years of Unix were
the "systems programmer" domain, having followed the "sales engineer" era of
the 60s (speaking roughly here) after the burgeoning computer industry's
customer relations functions started getting specialized and split off from
nerds. There were many, many more of you 30 years ago.

------
sp4rki
In my case I'm a designeer because of the circumstances of my interests at
diverse times and the way I learned such interests. I started to get
acquainted with linux when I was 7 or 8. I was coding C when I was 13 and then
at 15 I was really interested in everything design. I ended up doing Web
Design at 17. At 19 I opened a company making web applications. I then moved
on to corporate software where I was in charge of coding commerce and
enterprise applications. At 23 I was doing full sys admin work. I'm now 28 and
I'm working doing UX, Design, Web Dev, Backend Dev, and little Sys Admin
stuff. I'm rusty in the Sys Admin area, but I'm definitely more productive
than the average CompSci graduate with a few years experience.

I'm pretty sure there MUST be a person better than me in all those areas, but
not because I'm not a master of my skills, but because there is just always
someone better. Becoming a Designeer happens only if you have the time (a
decade?), and the inclination (interests in the right fields and skill sets at
the right intervals in time) to learn the things you need to learn to do the
job. Of course, there's also the fact that you need to be lucky enough to have
people to hire you to do those things so as to get enough quality experience
performing the tasks you need to perform.

Interestingly enough, I'm in the office right now... and this is the list of
stuff I've done today: 1) Finished coding a Windows service that acts as a
data bridge between an two applications and three types of databases. 2)
Worked a UX prototype for an IPad app (made in Keynote) that integrates with
an in house product. 3) Finished a redesign for another in house app (this one
is a ERP type WebApp). 4) Modified a series of E-cards the in house designers
made because they where not optimized for email and had some alignment,
whitespace, and typography mishaps. 5) Worked on integration of commerce
hardware with 'special printers'. 6) I'm currently designing the visual aspect
of an interface for yet another of our in house products.

BONUS: Yesterday I spent 3 hours securing the web servers for our website and
a ticketing tool that our customers use.

I am by no means the best programmer, sys admin, designer, or UX architect,
but I find all those roles are second nature for me and I have no problem
getting a job (I literally get a call every couple of days by recruiters or
companies offering me positions), and I only work in places I know I'll be
having loads of fun and interesting challenging work. Designeers are not hard
to get because they don't exist. They're hard to get because they want to make
their own rules and work in things they actually want to work in. Offer them
this and you'll invariably be able to score someone that will fill this often
looked for but generally not realistic position.

------
sandieman
Come on, they don't exist. If so, who are some well known designineers?

~~~
kreek
<http://www.joshuadavis.com/>

------
rajesh_vadakara
But I have seen a few persons with multiple skills in my career. Sharing the
portfolio of such a guy <http://idiode.in> . Its really awesome.

~~~
EvanYou
Quite honestly I wouldn't call that great design.

------
nnann
What salary should a desingineer expect in one of the big cities?

------
astrofinch
I don't see anyone explaining why it's such a big win to combine both skills
in a single person, which is what I'm curious about. Can anyone explain this
to me?

------
sp4rki
Shit this means that I should be asking for raise then?

------
itmag
I thought the word was "devigner".

What are some good books/resources for a code dude to learn som design and UX?
I feel lost with this stuff....

~~~
omarchowdhury
Best way to learn is to try to replicate an existing website's design/UX.

------
swah
What is the most evolved form of this Pokemon?

------
macca321
I dunno, we're looking for that guy who will send 200 emails a day promoting
the damn thing.

------
brezina
I've got 2. They exist. They make great co-founder and founding team members

------
scrozier
Given a scale of 1-10 for design skills and programming skills, it's my
experience that individuals significantly over 10 are rare indeed. In fact, If
you find one of Spinal Taps' mythical 11s, hire him or her now.

I myself am an 8 + 4, at least in my mind.

------
tcarnell
but I'm no myth! <http://tomcarnell.com> And as it happens, I'm looking for a
new project for 2012... :-)

~~~
tcarnell
(and no, I am not expecting and up-votes for that comment! - but just maybe
something interesting will come my way...)

------
rguzman
i don't think designers, per se, are that valuable.

this line of thought just stems from the conflation of graphic design and
interface design. the skill in demand is the latter. to be good at it one
needs to be able to be proficient in html, css, javascript, and have basic
abilities in whatever server-side technologies are in use.

so, yes, these folks will be hard to find. just like any other good engineer,
they'll either have a job, be kicking ass, or doing their own thing. c'est la
vie. try offering a wage they can't refuse.

~~~
alex_c
_interface design. the skill in demand is the latter. to be good at it one
needs to be able to be proficient in html, css, javascript, and have basic
abilities in whatever server-side technologies are in use._

I really don't follow. A kick-ass interface designer can know nothing more
than Photoshop. A front-end guru can be terrible at interface design. There's
very little connection between interface _design_ and the technologies used to
implement it.

~~~
scottschulthess
That's old school thinking right there. I'd never hire a designer who doesn't
know front end tech as well or better than they know photoshop.

The best designers will know HTML+CSS+Javascript pretty intimately for a
variety of reasons.

~~~
tompetty
I'd never hire a designer that valued Photoshop skills above problem solving,
design thinking and usability. Photoshop should be just a tool for a designer.
I think as that is where the end product usually comes from, it's seen as the
skill that you're buying as an employer. Anyone can learn Photoshop, it's
extremely simple, it's design thinking that separates the men from the boys.

------
c4urself
since when does a designer do html/css/js? or am i confusing a designer with a
front-end dev?

------
heyrhett
every Startups are haz more desingineer?

------
its_so_on
the key to this post is here:

"They’re doing something on their own, are already kicking ass and are not
available."

It's not that they can't use an extra $10k per month. They most certainly are
available.

They're not available at 'speculative, "startup" wages' with unknown prospects
_even if_ you get them on board with a token amount of equity and _even if_
you get funding.

They can do it all, and are doing it successfully. They don't need you.

So what? I don't need Google, I don't need Microsoft, I don't need IBM. These
companies would hire me by putting some money on the table.

The key to the 'desingineer' is that, you know, they don't really need you.
One of your skills (the person looking for a desingineer) is putting the
pieces together, finding the people and getting them on board, none of whom
can singly do everything. So, they need you.

THe desingineer doesn't need you. If you want them on board, you're going to
have to actually open your pocketbook. Imagine that.

------
ahoyhere
The HN comments have way more substance than the original post. But I'll echo
others: it doesn't take a genius to be both. On the other hand, a skill for
spotting and studying and applying underlying patterns is a must.

There are just as many patterns and underlying systems in design as codecraft,
and vice versa. And they're not that dissimilar.

Design isn't "art" -- it's a type of making things fit for purpose. You can
have purely functional design that meets the purpose without soul. You can
have purely functional code that meets the purpose without soul.

The best design is crafted with soul. But so is the best code.

As somebody who does both, I speak from experience - they're just not that
different. Superficially yes, but not at heart.

------
funthree
I am a `desingineer` I guess. I'm working on a startup that is taking on big
web analytics. A lot of the reusable code is being released as free and open
source so that I can focus on the UI. I built the initial front and backend
application (now leading a team), the UI, the product plan, and the marketing
plan.

<https://github.com/analytics-machine>

Contact me: tblobaum@gmail.com

------
gcb
having worked with engineers who claims to not 'get' visual stuff...

...and designers who, when pointed out why he forgot something obvious like
logoff links, just claims they do not fit the design...

...all i can say is that both are slackers and lazy.

the Engineer is just avoiding painful tedious work.

the Designer is just avoiding painful tedious work.

I not even a good coder nor a good designer. But heck i can identify slackers
using only common sense.

------
schraeds
I am proficient in: Photoshop, Illustrator, Expression Blend, Sencha,
HTML/CSS/Java, WPF, ExtJS.

I possess: Taste, attention to detail and aesthetics, an understanding of
human factors as they relate to computer interaction.

What does that make me? :)

~~~
peteretep
HTML/CSS/Java <\-- the lumping together of these three is either wrong (you
meant Javascript) or bizarre, too.

~~~
schraeds
I was referring to javascript, I think in that regard it would fit the others
as front-end development.

------
thesash
I think it's a good point that

------
chalgo
I consider myself a Designineer.

~~~
omarchowdhury
Congratulations.

