
'Range' Argues That Specialization Should Not Be The Goal For Most - respinal
https://www.npr.org/2019/05/28/725755061/range-argues-that-specialization-should-not-be-the-goal-for-most
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esotericn
Being a generalist is just more fun. That should be reason enough.

> A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a
> hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build
> a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate,
> act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a
> computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly.
> Specialization is for insects. -Robert A. Heinlein

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jawns
I am a generalist rather than a specialist, and I've found that there is a
sort of paradox around the hiring of generalists.

People are reluctant to hire a jack of all trades but a master of none -- even
when they admit that generalists tend to be more valuable to their businesses
than specialists over the long run.

This is especially true when it comes to remote hiring. Unfortunately, many
companies won't even consider opening a position to remote hires unless
they're convinced that it will be too difficult to find someone in-region. So
you end up with a lot of remote positions that are highly specialized.

~~~
tempguy9999
> People are reluctant to hire a jack of all trades but a master of none

2/3rds of job adverts I see seem these days to be for 'full stack' developers.
That's the definition of generalist-seeking IMO.

> even when they admit that generalists tend to be more valuable to their
> businesses than specialists over the long run

Oooh, that's quite the claim! I could equally claim from experience that
generalists (in the sense of full stack devs) can cost a lot from the very
lack of depth. eg. seeing a guy parse a scraped web page with regexes rather
than XSLT. Or databases thrashing horribly because someone didn't know enough
to diagnose them. Or unnecessary mem/network use in kafka because someone
didn't read the docs. And plenty more.

I'm not saying you're wrong but I'm struggling with your assertion.

~~~
jawns
> 2/3rds of job adverts I see seem these days to be for 'full stack'
> developers. That's the definition of generalist-seeking IMO.

Yes, but once you start reading the requirements in the body of the ad, it
becomes clear that the "full stack developer" needs to be highly specialized
in one particular frontend framework and highly specialized in one particular
backend language.

Then a generalist applies for the position and says, "I've worked with a bunch
of frontend frameworks, but not this one, and a bunch of programming
languages, and while I'm proficient in this one I'm hardly among the elite.
But I can recognize bad patterns across languages and have a good track record
of identifying the right tool for the job." And unfortunately, a lot of
companies just say, "Meh, we need someone who's really good at Angular and
Rails."

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daveslash
The same book, " _Range_ ", was mentioned in a NYTimes article, which was also
previously discussed here on HN.

See
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20094242](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20094242)
for commentary.

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homie
I’ve never understood the obsession businesses/managers have with
specialization in the tech realm. Knowing a lot of different (but related)
things doesn’t preclude you from learning something in depth.

