
Ask HN: What job can a “jack of all trades” look for? - programbreeding
tl;dnr: Unhappy at my job after &gt;7 years. Love being a jack of all trades. Love learning new things. Hate being stagnant. Hate being the smartest person in the room. Need something new. What roles out there fit the skill set of someone that is good at a whole lot of things, but doesn&#x27;t feel like a master&#x2F;senior in any one of them?<p>-<p>I&#x27;ve been at the same small company for over 7 years. I started at the bottom, worked my way to the top after 3 years, and I&#x27;ve been here since. For a couple years I created new positions for myself because I hate being stagnant, but there&#x27;s nothing else to do here.<p>I&#x27;m proficient in many things and enjoy doing all of them. Development (full stack), server admin, data center management, DevOps, project management, managing teams, VoIP, routing&#x2F;switching, training, sales... the list goes on.<p>My issue is I haven&#x27;t had formal training in a lot of it, and I didn&#x27;t have any mentors or people above me to teach me more because this company is too small. I just love learning and love moving forward so I kept teaching myself new things, and then using them in the company. I don&#x27;t actually feel like I have impostor syndrome, but I also feel like someone that is filling these roles at another company probably knows&#x2F;does it better job than I can. I&#x27;m just a big fish in a small pond here.<p>So finally to my question: what role&#x2F;job title I should be looking for? All the searching I do points me to one specific roles. PHP Developer. Systems Admin. Network Engineer. Etc. Are there any other &quot;Jack of all trades&quot; out there that can tell me what your job title is, and what I could be looking for?
======
akcreek
I have a wide-ranging self-taught skill set as well that I've developed over
the last 14 years of running my own businesses. I'll share what I'm doing from
a high level as it might not be the most common path.

I've been acquiring small but promising businesses that don't have the right
team in place to move them forward. I bootstrap them on my own and replace my
roles as the business can afford staff. Once enough roles are replaced, I'm
able to start looking for the next business. I'm on my fourth business now.
Sold the first two, the third is a productized service netting seven figures,
and I just acquired the fourth, which is a SaaS business that I believe has
great potential.

Currently, I'm formalizing this method and will build a team that can execute
it much more quickly than me alone. I'll be shooting for a new business every
12-18 months to build a portfolio. We'll have a group of partners and a small
staff that will be focused on getting these acquisitions straightened out and
growing, then we'll install a team to run them full-time and we'll go on to
the next one.

So just taking what I've been doing for years and everything I've learned from
it and scaling it up to reduce the timeframe from acquisition to growth and
then operation of the business.

If OP or anyone else who identifies themself in a similar manner wants to
chat, email is in my profile. I'm actively looking for people like us to work
with.

~~~
fxtentacle
I support this approach. I learned a lot about online marketing and selling
physical products by purchasing a struggling online shop. There's even
dedicated web pages like flippa.com or empireflippers.com

~~~
jklein11
I know this is probably anecdotal but have you found that buying a struggling
online shop was worth the money vs starting from scratch?

------
yibg
Put in a bit of a different view point here. I was the generalist a while ago
too. Worked at a consulting firm that did custom builds with small teams, so
not only did everything technology wise but also interacting with clients. So
did part of developer, account management, sales, dev ops etc roles. Also did
everything from backend to mobile in different frameworks and environments.

I thought the same, that I was a generalist and I did also enjoy the variety.
But a couple of things:

1) while I thought I was proficient in everything I actually wasn’t. When I
went to a big company where I focused on a specific area is when I discovered
how little I knew about the topic and how shallow my knowledge was.

2) I discovered that I enjoyed diving into a specific area and being a
specialist there was also fun. Gave me a different kind of rush and ego boost,
knowing I can solve deeper technical problems in a specific area.

3) you can’t be both broad and deep in everything. Best is probably aim for a
T shaped skill set.

I guess short version is, maybe give specializing a go. You might discover
that it’s both enjoyable and sets you up well professionally.

~~~
BrandoElFollito
Point 3 is a good one, I would just aim at \pi rather than T, just in case.

~~~
benji-york
How about jellyfish-shaped?

I.e., T-shaped with many descenders of various length.

~~~
BrandoElFollito
Yes, this is very good too. Make it a strong tripod with accessory legs and it
is perfect.

------
gshdg
Smaller companies need generalists more than big ones do. You’re likely best
off in early stage startups, small agencies, or your own consulting business.
There are also incubators and such who can use that skillset to help bootstrap
multiple startups per year.

~~~
FartyMcFarter
> Smaller companies need generalists more than big ones do

Big companies like Google also seem to hire a lot of generalists who have good
programming fundamentals, are smart, and can quickly (i.e. within months)
become productive in many kinds of projects.

These generalists then work on a project for 1-3 years. When they lose
interest, they move to another Google project or leave the company.

If you really want to work on both engineering and sales, you'd probably want
to run your own business or work at a very small company.

~~~
barrkel
I'd have put it the other way around. Small startups can't afford specialists,
not in terms of salary, but in terms of output: there's too much stuff to do
and the specialist work (whatever it is) isn't a large fraction of the total.

The larger and more mature a company is, the more able it is to afford a job
title which specializes in something narrower. It doesn't need to be super
large; if the product is very technical, a specialist might be necessary.

The situation can be a bit different in a large company. They might want to
hire a Java developer, or a front end developer. These are specialist roles,
in that the people in them have chosen a professional specialism. They're
commodity specialists though, so common that they're not thought of as
special. It's more rare that they want someone who can do devops, UI, JS, RoR,
Java and C++ - this is a generalist.

~~~
mNovak
Yup, this is spot on. In our startup one of the challenges to hiring isn't a
lack of money or need, but rather that we need people who can bounce around a
lot of somewhat specialized topics, while generally no one topic is big enough
to justify a full-time specialist.

------
shepardrtc
DevOps

I had the same issues for many years, but the past 2 positions have been
official "DevOps" positions and they more often than not have me doing so many
random things that require all sorts of skills. I love it. It keeps things
interesting, and it makes me very valuable to the company because I can do
whatever they need.

Sure, some places have a very narrow definition of DevOps, but that's usually
the large companies/teams. If you can find something a bit smaller, then
you'll have more of a jack-of-all-trades role. At least in my opinion.

~~~
hanoz
Whenever I see DevOps roles advertised they seem to consist of a wall of
product names under "must have x years commercial experience of", which is not
at all conducive to attracting a true turn-hand-to-anything generalist.

~~~
autotune
Yeah but when it's "must have x years of experience of $CLOUD_PROVIDER" that's
a whole ecosystem of tools to become proficient at. As someone who does DevOps
I've learned to take any hard requirements in job descriptions with a grain of
salt; companies are desperate for good DevOps talent, most suck at hiring for
it, and some are aware of both of those facts and as a result are more
flexible on some things than they would like you to believe.

~~~
shepardrtc
This has been my experience as well. Some companies are strict about
requirements, such as the FAANG companies, but many other smaller companies
just need someone who has a wide range of experience and can jump on new stuff
without any problems. Obviously you have to know basic DevOps terminology, but
after that everything is gravy.

------
hinkley
Early to mid career, the “full stack” developer has something going for them:
odds are pretty high you have 7 years’ experience rather than “1 year [7]
times”.

Something i learned about myself a little bit farther in was that I wasn’t a
generalist so much as I was a serial specialist (once you haven’t touched
something you used the be good at for seven years, can you still claim to be
good at it? Turns out I can’t).

What you list sounds quite a bit like what devops was supposed to be but
nobody does it that way. Instead you should probably look at small companies.
In a large one the only way to wear that many hats is to stick your nose into
other people’s responsibilities. At a small company there are gaps everywhere,
and people are just glad when someone can fill them.

If you have any ability to mentor, you might want to look at lead positions as
well, or think about what you need to get there. That gets you some management
responsibilities but you still get to make things.

~~~
travbrack
>what devops was supposed to be but nobody does it that way.

Can you elaborate on this?

~~~
BossingAround
Not OP, but DevOps was supposed to be one pool of people taking care of
everything, from infrastructure to networking to coding the whole thing. No
handovers (or as few as possible), people who specialize, yes, but can take on
a whole range of issues.

If Mark the networking guy is on vacation, Jane the fullstack dev should be
able to perform basic networking troubleshooting and implement some fix until
Mark returns and possibly fixes it.

Turns out people who can do that are:

\- incredibly expensive

\- very difficult to find

That's my take. I imagine a kanban board where prioritized issues are taken
not by people who specialize in that particular area, but by whoever has the
time right now. Again, I've actually never seen that implemented, except maybe
for companies that consist of nobody but Jane and Mark :)).

~~~
hinkley
A good start.

In other places, it just means operations people with some basic coding chops.
And they’re still a completely separate group, instead of an integrated team
solving systems problems.

------
WA
Make your own software product. Requires to be a jack of all trades. Coding,
marketing, writing, customer support, design. Because it's only you, you don't
have to feel like "being the smartest person in the room". Downside: Takes
quite some time to take off.

~~~
sgt
Additional downside: may never take off and leave you financially ruined.

~~~
enraged_camel
It won’t leave you financially ruined if you treat it as a side hustle and
keep your main job as a source of income until you get customers.

And if it never takes off, so what? At least it will be a great learning and
self-growth opportunity, which is exactly what the OP is asking for anyway.

~~~
chispamed
Thank you for your comment. I often feel that a part of HN judges jobs only
based on income and blames you for not focusing on one or the other and
thereby losing out on income or business growth. However I, too, think that
it's completely valid to stay at your main job while also working on side
projects. Maybe you won't be the richest person in the room or turn your
project into a huge success but being able to do stuff you love while not
risking your peace of mind is worth something as well.

------
robviren
Product manager is great for generalist. I was a programmer who enjoyed
technical challenge, but I eventually realized if I wanted to guide the
direction of projects I would have to join the business side.

The challenge is endless, diverse, and there is no perfect solution to the
problem if people. It is a strange domain, but being technical is nice when
working with development. Worth a try if you are in to that

~~~
ScottFree
Let's say a programmer was looking to make that change. Where would he start?
Are there training programs? What kind of company would provide a gentle
introduction? Is it easier to navigate the politics of a small company
creating their own product compared to a large consulting company that
provides staff augmentation services?

~~~
wallflower
This is a story about a developer going to project management from developer.

Speaking from the experience of a friend, they started out by talking with
their manager that they did not want to be a developer in the long term.
Shortly thereafter, the manager announced to the team that the developer was
going to start taking on project management tasks (like managing the project
using Microsoft Project and leading the scrum daily stand ups). They continued
in that capacity until they officially became project manager for another
team. Now, years later, they are still managing but managing managers and a
much larger team overall.

~~~
crucialfelix
Grandparent was suggesting Product Management, not Project.

~~~
wallflower
Thanks, I did not make it clear enough that I understood that, yet thought my
friend’s experience to transition internally was relevant.

------
duder_3569
Become a Consultant at Red Hat!

Wonderful, wonderful place to be a "jack of all trades," while also allowing
you the opportunity to carve out a niche if you find you do become passionate
about just one thing.

In addition to working in DevOps roles, there are a range of consulting
opportunities that are diverse, which adds another layer of keeping things
interesting. You can do work with small companies, large companies,
government, schools, incubators. And you don't have to stay put. It's
encouraged at Red Hat that you follow your passion. Allowing someone like you,
to chase whatever happens to tickle your fancy at a given moment.

[https://www.redhat.com/en/services/consulting](https://www.redhat.com/en/services/consulting)

~~~
BossingAround
Consultants seem to have a very chaotic work life, traveling pretty much non-
stop, being thrown to clients with no deep knowledge (in the beginning at
least) and the sink-or-swim mindset...

If that's what OP (or anyone else) is looking for, consulting career might be
awesome for bootstrapping one's skill and career.

Most consultants I've seen have switched positions after a year and a half or
less. There are some who absolutely love it and kudos to them, but those seem
to be in a minority.

No idea what consultant life is at Red Hat specifically, just some general
thoughts.

~~~
czbond
I agree with you and this fits enough people. Many (myself included) thrive
off constant action and change, steep risk and learning curves.

I started in management consulting - and even after doing startups for years -
find startups too mind-numbingly boring. (But that may be me) If I'm on an
internal teams - I have to work on many things at once to keep sane.

For me, management consulting (using my CompSci as a starting point) it gave
me skillsets others don't replicate easily.

~~~
duder_3569
Agreed. Not for all, but certainly a great fit for people who love change and
doing new things.

------
antoncohen
Site Reliability Engineer (SRE)[1]. Read the SRE book
([https://landing.google.com/sre/books/](https://landing.google.com/sre/books/)).
Study any gaps you have. Tailor your resume and talking points to the
job/direction you want, meaning de-emphasize some things, while still showing
your career path and depth. Look to work at a big-ish company that is
respected for engineering quality, where you can learn from others and from
existing good practices. It doesn't need to be a Google or Facebook sized
company, something around the size of Dropbox, Lyft, Stripe, and similar would
be good.

[1] Really, "Development (full stack), server admin, data center management,
DevOps, project management, managing teams, VoIP, routing/switching" is a
perfect fit for SRE, and SRE probably is the most in-demand and highly paid of
all the related fields (software development, etc.).

~~~
epiphanitus
It’s a fun challenge depending on the company, but before taking a job like
that ask about on-call schedules so you know what you’re getting into.

------
mikekchar
I have seen this so many times it isn't even funny. Talented people start off
their career at a startup and then kind of camp there forever. The "Hate being
the smartest person in the room" quote is classic as well. You end up being
the best programmer you ever met because... well... you are at the top of your
little mound. It's not even that you _are_ necessarily the smartest or best in
your group. But who is going to challenge you? It's a no go from the start.

Young (in experience) programmers need to move around a fair bit early in
their careers, IMHO. It's good for getting perspective and seeing things from
different points of view. But it isn't all roses and sunshine. It will be very
challenging in a number of ways, but if you don't do it you will stagnate.

So what should you do? Get a job in an area and do your best. Don't try to do
everything. Try to learn from others. Get to see their perspective. Do it
wrong many, many times so that you can _really_ understand why it is wrong. Or
why (surprisingly) it is not.

But most important of all, don't try to do it all. I'm sorry to say this, but
you are not a big fish in a small pond (yet). You are a fish that doesn't yet
know what "big" means, or else you would have asked a very different question.
What potential you have to grow will be determined by the attitude with which
you take your next steps.

------
prewett
Try freelance focusing on making MVPs or early-stage products. I’ve always
been a jack of all trades, and it never felt like an asset until I started
freelancing. Oh, the 3D engine you want me to optimize is Typescript, not C#
as advertised or C++ as I was hoping to talk you into? Guess I’m learning
Typescript today, ... Oh, your iOS app needs an AWS server set up? Never had
to use AWS before (I do mostly apps, not servers, and it was a native iOS
project), but some old Linux sysadmin knowledge enables me to jump in and get
something running.

You’ll inevitably need to learn something brand new, and you get to pick your
clients. After a few successful projects you start looking really appealing as
a generalist.

Try Toptal or Moonlight, post on the monthly HN who wants a freelancer post,
and reach out locally for clients.

------
gt_grc
Two things that come to mind are sales engineer (tech skills, sales, training)
and consultant (tech skills, project management, team management, sales). If
you've worked with a particular software vendor's products, it could help you
get your foot in the door as a sales engineer for that vendor. You could also
do technology consulting at one of the Big Four or a similar consulting firm.
And you can leverage your reputation and network to go back into industry if
consulting isn't a long-term fit. (A few years ago, I was in a similar place
career-wise and went to one of the Big Four for a while. It was a good
experience for me because it basically forced me to improve my weaker skills,
and it exposed me to new domains outside of my areas of expertise.) The
downside is that you'll travel a lot in either job.

------
anonsivalley652
Either a Site Reliability Engineer (SW-SRE/SA-SRE), startup founder or farmer.
;) (It's also true: farmers often do welding, machining, industrial
maintenance (hydraulic/electrical/mechanical), surveying, geology, botany,
chemistry, accounting, marketing and more.)

Work is real experience, don't discount it. :thumbs up emoji here:

If you're worried about knowledge gaps, here's a badass career development
project -> self-pace audit a quality CS degree:

\- Find the required course list for a particular university, let's say MIT or
CalTech.

[http://catalog.mit.edu/degree-charts/computer-science-
engine...](http://catalog.mit.edu/degree-charts/computer-science-engineering-
course-6-3/)

[http://cms.caltech.edu/academics/ugrad_cs](http://cms.caltech.edu/academics/ugrad_cs)

\- Select a sequence of courses based on their requirements.

\- Go through each and every course syllabus and textbook to learn the big
ideas.

\- Write and keep notes in your own words to summarize each concept.

\- If you get stuck on any concept, scour the internet, MOOCs and youtube
until you get it. As a last resort, SO/HN/Reddit.

\- Do the syllabus homework at a minimum.

PS: I was self-taught (Pascal, assembly, C89, C++, and Java), built beige PCs,
was an assistant manager at a software store (Egghead), and had a sysadmin
consulting company installed an ISDN modem, made NIX and Windows place nice
and helped port a BWR/PWR simulator from NIX to Win32 before I was 18. Then I
spent 10 years, money and took on some debt to get a degree that ultimately
proved worthless trying to appease HR people and family... don't do that.

------
Rapzid
Look for jobs that are outside your comfort zone. Leverage your existing
experience to convince a new company you can do X even though you've never
done X, but based on your history of doing Y which is related but not the
same. You didn't know Y when you started it either, but you got Y done and
know the impact on the business.

Look for Systems Engineering(not a title used much anymore TBH), DevOps, Site
Reliability Engineering, Platform Engineer, Developer Experience engineer(or
whatever).

A lot of these roles will be very cross discipline and non-functional. Always
be on the lookout for cog-in-machine roles; DevOps can be "The buck stops at
you for our companies site reliability" or "you write Chef cookbooks and test
kitchen scripts all day".

Don't let anyone tell you your skill set doesn't exist. Let's face it, most
college grads do the bare minimum of learning for their degree. Most people
don't to TOO much more than what they need to keep their career viable. Being
a "generalist" is like taking 20 electives you don't need to graduate; it's
inconceivable to many people. Mediocre engineers and specialists will rail
against the idea to protect their ego. Generalists will rail against
specialist value to protect their ego. Don't get too caught up in the BS.

Be prepared to be pigeon-holed. Nearly every person you meet at your new
employer will see your last job "title" and generalize you. Typically the only
exceptions will be the recruiter and maybe, incredibly maybe, the hiring
manager.

GL/HF

------
finaliteration
I’m also a generalist and I’ve found my “place” as a systems integrator. The
work requires me to know/learn a bunch of different systems and patterns and
be able to transfer knowledge across domains. It requires that I understand
infrastructure, programming, and distributed systems, as well as be able to
collaborate with a bunch of different teams during the course of setting up
integrations and messaging systems.

I really enjoy the work and I’m very rarely bored.

~~~
The_DaveG
Coming from an SI background, I was thinking the same thing.

It's nice to see another integrator here. What do you guys focus on?

------
Dansvidania
I have a pretty similar story: Worked in enterprise for the last few years and
recently I ended up leading and coordinating a "scrum" team in a technical
lead position.

I do not spend as much time as I would like contributing to the codebase (the
devs in my team do often a better job of it), but rather tend to act as a
solution architect. I often bootstrap projects, do a lot of research and
development, build proof of concepts, and overall push the team towards best
practices.

I am very proud of some of my achievements (we are lucky enough to have
freedom in the tech that we use and are currently testing out Elm for a small
app, we moved the team from Java to Kotlin..) but I feel like I have lowered
my value in the general market.

I would be curious to know in what form you contribute to your current team. I
do not feel like my job is done here, but I am also going back and forth on
whether I should get back to a more coding-oriented job, rather than doing my
coding in my free time just to keep in touch with the craft.

~~~
BossingAround
> but I feel like I have lowered my value in the general market

Seeing the quality and technical abilities of scrum masters I've worked with,
that statement is probably true.

That said, if you can demonstrate that you're a good scrum master that is
actually technically skilled, I'd pay your weight in gold for you...
Monthly...

~~~
Dansvidania
I have worked in scrum for years now and I still have very little clue about
what a "good scrum master" really does.

Mine, so far, weren't.

------
chrisbennet
I gave this advice just today: Don't call yourself "A jack of all trades" on a
resume or in an interview.

Instead refer to yourself as a "Swiss Army knife" or something.

The reason is that "A jack of all trades." is often (mentally at least)
followed by "Master of none".

------
fghorow
If you have something in the sciences/engineering that fascinates you enough
to consider it, maybe grad school?

I guarantee that none of the IT skills you have acquired will go to waste.
Plus -- by choosing a fascinating area -- you might actually NOT BE BORED!

On the other hand, if you are at all hesitant, don't go to grad school. With
the wrong adviser, it will chew you up and spit you out in tiny bleeding
little pieces.

Just my 2 cents...

~~~
kylebenzle
... the wrong adviser, it will chew you up and spit you out in tiny bleeding
little pieces.

Exactly what happend to me. 4 years in a PhD program with an adviser that
could not have cared less about anything I was doing. I gave up after my wife
left me because I was spending too much time at "work". Yeah, now I have
nothing and can't get a job because 4 years of nothing looks pretty bad.
(Thank god I bought Bitcoin).

------
topkai22
If you are a “people person” IT consulting, technical sales engineering, and
other “field” based technical roles at larger companies require a lot of
generalist skills. Consulting and sales engineering are a lot more technical
than I expected when I moved over from product engineering. The big downside
is they tend to be high travel roles.

~~~
cpitman
I agree, as a consultant I have grown into a generalist over time, and
consulting rewards those that do.

As a concrete example, I'm at Red Hat Consulting. We have products that range
from RHEL, to Kubernetes/OpenShift, to language runtimes/tools/middleware, and
finally to more process focussed transformation. You can specialize, but the
more of these you are competent in the more useful you become. I am in more of
a leadership role now, and in any one project I am likely involved in all of
the above.

The key skills you haven't mentioned are the "Soft" skills: mentoring, client
facing leadership, presentation skills, etc. If these are a strength for you,
then consulting would be perfect.

Shameless plug at the end, Red Hat is hiring: [https://careers-
redhat.icims.com/jobs/search?ss=1&searchCate...](https://careers-
redhat.icims.com/jobs/search?ss=1&searchCategory=17508)

~~~
eropple
Has the IBM acquisition started to affect you guys yet?

~~~
cpitman
Not really. From our perspective, IBM is a partner (we have lots of those)
that we just happen to have alignment on both sides to work more with. That
means that on the sales side we spend more time trying to find ways to
collaborate. Usually there is this long awkward dance with a partner, where
you're not sure who is committed and how committed they are. The IBM
acquisition cuts a lot of that out, we know that we're tied together so we
have to figure out how to partner together, even if we are two separate
companies.

On the actual consulting side, 95%+ of consultants have seen no impact. Those
that are being impacted are working on projects that have more IBM products
involved. For example, some of my team is starting to work with OpenShift on
Z.

------
memling
After 9 years as a programmer at a small polyglot dev shop, I moved to a
publicly-traded industrial hardware firm as a systems engineer a few years
ago. There's a bit of overlap between programming and systems engineering
(requirements analysis, testing and test design, failure cause analysis, et
c.), but I knew nothing about hardware. (I was very open about this, and they
hired me anyway. So far, so good.)

On the balance, I've found it to be remarkably similar to being a software
generalist. You have to know something about everything and everything about
something (I stretch a little, but my core competency is programming; the rest
I learn as I go). You get to be engaged at all points by all people throughout
the product development life-cycle. For my part, it's taught me a lot and
definitely made me a more critical thinker.

Downsides include more red tape, similar mentoring problems due to personnel
churn, and occasional tensions due to aligning more on shareholder than
employee goals. Our project management is also a bit dicey.

I've toyed with getting back into programming full time, and the career switch
has cost me a bit there. While I think my coding chops are still decent (I
program daily and grab a few minutes sometimes for personal projects at home),
my vocabulary has suffered, and that definitely cost me in recent interviews.

------
thulecitizen
Learn about distributed computing patterns and Protocol or Open Cooperativism?
[https://ceptr.org](https://ceptr.org) /
[https://developer.holochain.org](https://developer.holochain.org),
[https://dat.foundation/](https://dat.foundation/),
[https://scuttlebutt.nz](https://scuttlebutt.nz)?

------
dcanelhas
Try to become a full-fledged mechatronics engineer and then we can talk about
the woes of spreading oneself too thinly across too many disciplines, instead
:)

~~~
dcanelhas
In practice you could join an autonomous driving or robotics start-up/R&D
group.

------
myth2018
I feel pretty much the same and have recently applied to a position of
Logistician with Doctors Without Borders.

I got really surprised when I first read about the attributions. I had never
seen all my interests forming such a harmonic whole before.

------
rossdavidh
Lots of great suggestions here, including JOAT doing better at small or
startup companies. One other thought I'd like to add is, if what you actually
dislike about your current situation is the isolation, then you should start a
group for JOAT's, and set up a forum or other method in which such people can
lean on each other's experience and skills. I see from the responses to this
question that there are a lot of people in your situation, and it may be that
what is needed is a professional organization tailored to their type of role.
This would fix the issues of brainstorming, someone to ask for advice on a
tech decision, sharing war stories, etc.

On the other hand, if you're really just looking for a different employer,
then either find a similar position at a different small company, or go
DevOps, because that is the one right now where the need is so desperate that
they will hire someone with mixed experience instead of insisting on a
specialist. But, beware, people who fell naturally into being a JOAT, often
don't like becoming specialists after a year or so.

------
psb31
This resonates strongly with me. I founded a startup as the technical co
founder and now do a mix of product and engineering management. I agree with
many of the others here: a small company / startup as an early engineer or a
technical product manager sounds like it would fit well. Or, if you have the
desire, founding your own company means you get to wear many hats.

------
thorin
I consider myself to be a bit of a Jack although I've been doing database
development / design / data mostly for the last 2 years. I've also been doing
Java, JavaScript, C, .Net, mobile, some admin, DBA.

I'm currently working as a technical architect that allows me to do some low
level work but also work across several areas/technologies. A senior support
engineer might also do the same. I've noticed quite few integration jobs which
might involve working across technologies. I'd apply for technical roles in
your desired pay range and location where you have some of the skills and see
what happens. You don't really know too much about jobs until you get there.

Some people really value a diverse skillset and others just want you to churn
out x lines of Java code per day...

------
antalk
I'm in a similar situation, with a similar mindset and education (i.e. none)

Sure, a broad skillset would make an excellent case for starting your own
business, but I think that being a "jack of all trades" is a sign of a certain
personality: great vision and engineering talent, but lack of disciplin to
really follow through.

Trying to start my own business has been the most frustrating chapter of my
life. I would drop projects regularly to work on something more exciting. I
never got anything done until I randomly found a job with a good boss.

Good management is crucial. Someone who can keep up with new ideas and who can
delegate the burden which comes with project work. The field is in my view
irrelevant; you would pick up the skills anyway.

------
probinso
This sounds like a full stack skillset. You want to "Jack up your trades"?
Break into something else.

The next closest thing is Phone Stack Programming! That space has a lot of
interesting challenges, and can leverage your current skills.

A good way to be the dumbest person in the room is to diverge hard. NLP,
Security/Privacy, Image/Audio/Language Processing, Compilers, Operating
Systems, Statistical Modeling.

I consider myself a Jack of all trades from the opposite side. I had 8 years
industry work before my first opportunity to Full Stack. Hard switches are
hard in every direction, but I am a big fan of "drowning to the top".

------
SnowingXIV
Really appreciate all the suggestions in this thread.

Very similar story. Beyond doing the full stack development of their web
properties and internal database, design, IT, networking, I've created a
marketing, seo, and advertising role handling all of that to bring in clients.
It's a busy day but have automated as much as possible. Currently looking for
something that checks all the boxes and that'll have me. Hardest part is
remote is a must. Definitely don't have an issue traveling for work but
relocation would be tough. Recently bought a house in the midwest with my
wife.

~~~
thestepafter
Do you have any interest in partnering with someone who will manage all the
technical details related to your clients web presence so you can focus on the
core of your business?

------
gemexe
I think you will do very well in IT security, those who dabbled in many things
can join the dots and appreciate the bigger picture, which is necessary for
security due to its "cover all bases" nature

~~~
WA
Depends on what you do every day. Revenue is made by doing stupid pen tests.
Since you are a revenue-driver, you gotta do them. And most are boring. The
cool stuff like hacking hardware, reverse engineering and whatnot doesn't pay
money. It's mostly a marketing gag to find new customers. Maybe you're lucky
and can fill such a position.

------
dorkwood
I'm also a generalist, and I've been wondering if it might be a good idea, for
my next job, to only market myself using one of my skills.

My role at the moment involves doing several different things, some of which
I'm not very good at, which tends to make my work quite difficult.

I find myself being envious of other members of the team who only need to do
one thing, and don't even need to do it that quickly (they probably get paid
the same, too). If I had their lives, I think to myself, I wouldn't find work
so exhausting.

------
Scea91
You need to look into the book 'Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a
Specialized World' as it might boost your spirit a bit and also give you some
ideas.

You can do any 'job'. If you have communication skills you are particularly
well-suited to be a leader coordinating a team of specialists, connecting them
and finding value in the overlap of their specialities.

Most of the people are too narrow now in my opinion. It is your great
advantage that you can see a bigger picture than an overspecialized PHP
Developer for example.

------
redsymbol
Lots of great suggestions in this thread.

Another you might consider is starting your own business.

This path is not for most people. However, being successful as an entrepreneur
does require a wide breadth of knowledge, and plenty of new things you'd need
to always learn.

If you go this route, keep your (current) full-time job while you start
building it on the side. Your one and only test of when you're ready to go
solo is your ability to make consistent profit.

------
giantg2
I'm a generalist too, or as someone else put it - a serial specialist. You
could just stagnate until you retire. That's basically what I'm doing, but for
slightly different reasons.

Promotions and ratings at my company are very subjective and political. I've
had quite a few people over the past 4 years thinking that I was a level
higher than I actually am (I'm a dev, people have even mistaken me a tech
lead), one of them even offered me a next level position. The subject and
technology were not interesting and it was a dead end career-wise (prior to my
acceptance ofstagnation). But I have also had a couple of managers that say
stuff like 'not everyone has the potential to get to the next level' or 'I
hired you because I could see you being a senior dev or tech lead in a couple
years, but I don't think that anymore'.

Basically, you might be better off just accepting that you hit your peak and
enjoy the brief moments that you find yourself doing something interesting
rather than torment yourself with looking for the next promotion or change.

------
not_buying_it
Not what I'm up to presently, but I would advise you to not worry about title
and really shoot for company size and sector. In a nutshell, big companies
hire specialized cogs, small companies hire general purpose cogs. If you want
to be able to roam about and do everything, go for companies that are small
but need the skills of a generalist to get them going.

------
timurlenk
Project managers with technical skills are worth gold in product companies
(possibly in other companies as well).

Run a few product implementations at customer side and there will be no
monotony.

If you grow older and start appreciating more the routine in your life you can
go into product management using the knowledge accumulated on customer side
implementations and finally consulting.

------
wespiser_2018
In my previous job, I was a data scientist at a start up company, and
developed skillsets in a few areas, mostly by working as a technical lead on
projects by myself. When the time came for my next role, the most important
advice I got was to take the time to figure out what I want to do next, based
on the skills I had.

Given that, I ended up applying to jobs that satisfied two criteria. 1) I'd be
on a good technical team, and not working as a sole developer on a project 2)
The company has a great learning opportunities and mentorship.

From my experience, "jack of all trades" usually just means "all the things we
need, at company X, right now", and one "jack of all trades" or multi-skilled
position may not overlap with another, it's entirely context dependent. Thus,
these positions tend to evolve from something else in smaller, less structured
companies, and one option for you would be just trying to join a similar
company!

------
marcinzm
I agree with others that a smaller company seems the best fit since they need
generalists. Potentially a manager role might be good if you've got the non-
technical skills for it. That lets you hire people for areas you no longer
want to be hands on with.

As an example, at my current job over the last two years I've done data
engineering, devops, sysadmin, security, machine learning, backend api, people
management, product management, project management, and probably some things I
forgot about.

It does help to have a core set of skills that you are particularly good at
and experienced. Mine is data engineering followed by machine learning and
devops (devops being a recent addition). I avoid boredom in those areas by
building better systems at every company based on past experience and the
specific business goals of the company.

------
hackdna
As a Research Software Engineer ([https://us-rse.org/what-is-an-
rse/](https://us-rse.org/what-is-an-rse/)) you will have a chance to work on
challenging projects that require wide technical experience and a lot of
learning.

------
aj7
I was just like this in the laser field. As an engineer, my skills were
middling but my physics was good. I hung around the product managers, who were
chemistry PhD fraternity boys. In return for understandable answers for the
tougher customer questions, they taught me product management.

------
telebone_man
> Development (full stack), server admin, data center management, DevOps,
> project management, managing teams, VoIP, routing/switching, training,
> sales... the list goes on.

I was a 'generalist' for most of my career. I had started, run and sold a
successful business that required me to touch all parts of the business.

Until a Sales Director absolutely schooled me in the theory that underpinned
his work. He seemed insulted that I claimed to be proficient in sales. It was
an insult to his specialism.

I would suggest you really test yourself in one of these areas before claiming
you're proficient. I've never met a single person who was proficient in all
the above. I've met plenty of people who could trudge along in those areas.

------
welcome_dragon
Have you worked in ETL? With AI/machine learning work, it's probably the most
important non-AI aspect of a workflow. Getting data to an expected format is
not always an easy task, and it requires knowing a lot of different things to
get it right.

------
daniel_iversen
Presales consulting (also sometimes called Systems Engineer, Solutions
Engineer, Sales Engineer, Sales Consultant or Solutions Architect) can be a
very fun and rewarding job with lots of personal growth (but of course there’s
a spectrum). So if you love technology, sales and Business you could explore
that. You’re basically part of a sales function within an organisation and
your role in the sale centres heavily around solution definition, architecture
and security (incl objection handling), business case creation, (some)
detailed product demonstrations, vision/thought leadership etc. I’ve been
doing it for like 15 years or so and love it.

------
eof
I would market yourself as a generalist. Small and medium sized companies
under rapid growth need generalists more than anything; especially if your
soft skills are good and you can mentor/lead other engineers.

I went through triplebyte as a generalist and it literally changed my life; I
had lots of competing offers well beyond what I thought was in my reach.

My role is now 'engineering manager' but I was hired as a staff software
engineer; but into an org on a stack I had zero experience with.

If I did it again I would probably do the same thing; but I would also be
looking at sales engineering roles; something I wasn't really aware of at the
time.

------
jedberg
Look into the security field. Your broad base of knowledge from bottom to top
would be helpful.

Find a great security team and hope that they will bring you on and mentor
you.

Security is a great specialty for you in that it is very broad and always
changing.

------
willart4food
Well, your ultimate goal should be to be an entrepreneur or a the technical
co-founder (and #2); but that's not only easier said than done, it's not for
everyone. Is it you? You and only you can know that answer.

In the meanwhile your best bet is to market yourself to cash-strapped
startups, pre-prototype to hack together the product/service. You might have
to work for a dozen or so start-up that fail before finding the rising star;
In such case make sure that you get enough equity so that, by the time
"professional management" comes in, you're protected by your equity.

------
rasikjain
In my experience, the job market looks for a specific niche. You are well
compensated for a niche technology instead of generalist "jack of all trades".
(e.g Salesforce, AWS, Mulesoft, CyberSecurity etc)

Even though a person has experience with lot of tools and languages, I believe
it would be better to market yourself with specific set of
tools/technology/language which are in demand. This has been my experience and
worked out well.

If you have any questions, my email is in profile. Good luck with your search.

------
astockwell
I will run contrary to many suggestions already here. It seems (from the 3
example titles you give) that you want to stay technical/individual
contributor. If that’s the case, you can absolutely take your breadth of
skills to a big company, whether an established tech company or a technical
team within eg the F500. I personally identify as a generalist also, and I
(through complete accident and happenstance) moved into cybersecurity (not
appsec to be clear, appsec is a team within cyber). Basically one of the most
lucrative niches out of my broader range of experiences. It has worked out
well for me.

Tl;dr - figure out which of your experience areas align with an area that’s
either lucrative to you or of high interest for you for other reasons, and
pursue that at a large company. At higher technical levels, your soft-skill
and cross-dept experience will further accelerate your career.

------
dcole2929
Not so much a role as the team I think a lot of people with wide reaching
skill sets enjoy. The platform team. Basically responsible for cross cutting
concerns between teams. Lots of infrastructure. Lots of defining best
practices. Lots of jumping into projects to save them. Team kind of ends up
being the roving jack of all trades team that dives into really hard projects
that no one feature team has the skill set or time to focus on.

------
rashoodkhan
Hey. Do you want to work with a startup going through good scaling up growth?
Also, want to learn from your experience on VoIP and scaling the infra. Let me
know?

------
ssss11
I have a similar background and went into technical management. I found that i
didnt like the people management side of things and preferred delivering new
things to help the business and so i shifted to a project management role. I
now am involved in delivering cutting edge new solutions for our business but
dont need to be hands on, my tech knowledges also helps in discussions with
engineers - hope this perspective helps.

------
tootie
Try looking for a top digital agency. I know they get a bad rap from HN, but
good ones do a ton of interesting work for a big variety of different clients
and product types and there is usually wide open opportunities to dip your
toes in pretty much every aspect of every kind of digital product. They're
also active in a ton of different markets so don't need to be in SF or NYC.

------
peter_retief
I have a similar situation, I enjoy building electronics, increasingly
analogue, projects, Finding efficient ways of deploying hardware (Wireframe
spot welded). Using interesting software (Like M/Mumps, have a look you will
be impressed). Really am a jack of all trades master of none, but I have a lot
of fun. I dont have a lot of billable work which is a bit of a problem at
times

------
WheelsAtLarge
If you have some discipline and can focus on projects you are the perfect
candidate for starting your own business. As a business owner you need to be
able to do many different things as you start out. Eventually you'll need to
focus on one role but that's in the future and you can always start another
business if you feel the need.

------
atmosx
The SRE role seems to be the most wide role there is. By definition you'd have
to build systems in a highly available fashion some guarantees. Systems like
databases, queues and orchestrators. You will have to be part of the design of
the deployment pipeline, the user management, the secrets management, etc.
Hell you might end up being part of the security boundaries too (container,
node, namespace?).

Since you'll most likely be part of setting up the deployment pipeline, you
have to understand to some extend various git flows. You might end-up
consulting developers on how to build applications that will run on a docker
container, what are the best practices and what pattern the app must follow
(e.g. circuit breaker) in a micro-services environment.

You surely will want to automate some management. So apart from DSLs like
terraform and configuration management systems (puppet, chef, saltstack,
ansible) you will have to write some API here and there, an application
tailored around the need of your systems. This application might end up being
written in python, ruby, golang or C.

Now, consider that you have build the CI/CD, the orchestrator, alongside the
entire pipeline and logic to drive an application from staging to production.
You'll most likely be on call and you'll have to deal with networking issues
at TCP, HTTP or DNS level, load balancing, autoscaling, etc. You might have a
say on that query which is too heavy because the data is un-indexed because,
well brings down the database every now and then.

There is no role I can think of in a modern institution which has the breadth
of technologies that an SRE (or DevOps engineer as they are often called) will
have to gain expertise.

In short you have to be: A medium-level programmer in terms of concepts, have
networking experience, learn dozens of new tech, face ever-evolving problems
eventually at scale, design end-to-end systems, debug applications others
written sometimes without having context, understand trade-offs of new tech
stacks only to explain it to others (which might end in a PITA due to the
back-and-forth but you'll eventually end up knowing lots of things you didn't
ever thought about).

If you like all that, then an SRE role is ideal IMO even in medium to big
corps.

NOTE: The role could be called SRE, DevOps engineer, Infrastructure Engineer
and/or quite a few other things depending on where you work. Responsibilities
tend to overlap significantly though.

~~~
renaudg
I've been an SRE / DevOps for nearly 20 years (well, the role has changed
quite a bit since it was called "sysadmin") and wanted to thank you for this
excellent description.

I often wonder whether I should start pivoting to full-stack or at least back-
end development, in order to better position myself for technical cofounder /
startup CTO opportunities (DevOps expertise isn't the most valuable skillset
in the first few months. Ability to quickly whip a product prototype together
at a hackathon is.)

But you've just reminded me why I love my job so much !

------
federicosan
Did you ever think about becoming an entrepreneur? You have an interesting set
of skills that would give you at least some start, of course, you would have
to learn some things about marketing and branding. Check indiehackers.com
maybe you get some ideas. I have the same problem as you, it seems product
managers and CEOS have multiple skills.

------
0xEFF
You could consult if you enjoy the human relationship and light project
management aspects of being a jack of all trades.

------
tolidano
SRE (Site Reliability Engineering) or CPE (Client Platform Engineering) or
DevOps.

All of these will use 50-60% of your skills.

------
INTPenis
Any you can shift your focus to. I don't see a future being a JOAT, especially
not if you're transcending vast ecosystems like Windows, Linux or proprietary
and open source.

Choose one such ecosystem to focus on, but within that can be many exciting
things like Javascript and Python or Rust and Embedded.

------
gbasin
You should consider starting your own company, or being a CTO for an early
stage co.

------
mquander
The last time I felt this way I went to go work on VR software and learned all
about 3D graphics, game development, and real-time networking in games for a
few years. I recommend it.

------
hkiely
Product management is an excellent role, the jobs are not easy to land. You
often need specific product execution and delivery experience.

------
ekanes
In addition to job title, consider also company size/phase. Small companies
benefit from and appreciate generalists more.

------
ramsundhar20
You are not alone. I am also a big fish of your kind, was living another pond
until recently, I started my own business

~~~
globular-toast
How do you know what to do? I don't like being a big fish but I have no ideas
for my own business.

------
phendrenad2
Jack of all trades is okay, but it's best if you pick one thing that you like
best and specialize in it. Your other skills will help you in your day-to-day,
but the deep specialization will help you with career advancement. Also don't
forget to change the "one thing" if it becomes too untrendy... PHP developers
aren't making what they once did, although PHP is still used all over the
place.

~~~
bborud
"Jack of all trades, master of a few" is a better ambition. If you are in your
20s, your first goal is to become master of at least a couple of trades.
Roughly 1-1.5 per decade.

As an employer I look for a balance. I look for the ability to have deep
knowledge in at least one area, but also working knowledge in more areas.

Think of it as an S-curve that is steep in the 20s and flattens somewhere in
the 50s. Those first 10 years after graduation are a bit special. This is
where you either become really good at something, or you become mediocre (or
worse).

(If you are a programmer and I see you spending 2 years on each programming
language before moving on to whatever was trendy at the time: slim chance I
will hire you. You will probably give lots of entertaining talks to
conferences, but you will not accomplish much in real terms. I've seen people
piss away decades of their lives like this, only to end up at the bottom of
the food chain)

~~~
lytefm
This sounds like good advice. I'm also employed at an early-stage startup and
enjoy peeking into different areas in order to become proficient enough to be
a founder myself at some point. In contrast, I rather disliked my first
student job in a more established company after a year for being too
specialised. Someone mentioned that a pi-shaped knowledge would be a good
thing to aim for - I guess especially if they integrate well. I truly enjoy
doing both Full-Stack Web Development (leaning towards backend) and Data
Science (Python).

------
bluedino
Smaller company. Master their domain. Streamline all their business processes.
CTO role or something like that.

------
anovikov
Why don't you just do contract short term work? This is where a jack of all
trades has best prospects.

------
pid_0
Depends what your trades are. Devops/security jack of all trades are super in
demand for consulting.

------
x3haloed
Kind of sounds like you could be in a leadership role. Do you like working
with people?

------
ivix
Surprised that no one has mentioned solutions architect. Sounds like a good
fit to me.

------
forgotmypw77
quality assurance, either straight up manual testing or automation. in my
experience, way less stressful than any other hat i,ve worn: sysadmin,
netadmin, coder. salary will be about 80% of a dev, still decent.

------
jl2718
To me, all of those roles are the same “IT” job. I’d expect all of them from
the same person. There are plenty of people that are bobsleigh racer butcher
quantum physicist night club deejay art critics applying for C# financial
database platform architect roles.

------
bryanrasmussen
Consultant, and develop some specific targeted cvs to give companies.

------
christiansakai
Fullstack Developer?

Btw big companies like FAANG interview generalists all the time.

~~~
eropple
They do, but in my experience most really broad generalists don't sufficiently
fit into any given box. (One interview loop at a FAANG I was asked to come
back three times for three teams--one systems, one backend, and one mobile--
andmy backchannel feedback was "they all worry you'd get bored." Which was
probably true.

There are definitely generalists _at_ FAANGs, and they've got license to kill,
but it seems like they were hired specifically at a certain rarefied level or
they grew into the role over time.

------
ramsundhar20
You are not alone. I am just in another small pond.

------
cameronfraser
Early startups love jack of all trades

------
helij
Move into managerial/sales role.

------
ambernightcrush
the full quote goes: jack of all trades master of none but better than a
master of one.

------
simonebrunozzi
Maybe launch your own company?

------
dillonmckay
Solutions Architect

------
jiveturkey
sysadmin is the standard one. CEO is the other. :)

------
beamatronic
Support engineer

------
eps
> _Hate being the smartest person in the room._

More likely than not this is not true. Dunning-Kruger effect and all that.

Especially if, by your own assessment, you are "proficient" in devops _and_
sales.

------
patcoll
CEO

------
troughway
Oh shit.

>I've been at the same small company for over 7 years. I started at the
bottom, worked my way to the top after 3 years, and I've been here since. For
a couple years I created new positions for myself because I hate being
stagnant, but there's nothing else to do here.

I've been there and I thrive on it to this day. There are ups and downs with
this, but you have something that will serve you very well if you choose to
have a change of perspective/attitude.

You can either take this as a blessing or as a curse. Have you thought about
going into an executive role and leading the company in a larger capacity, and
helping it grow further?

At a certain point you have to drop off all of these duties that you are
performing so that you can leverage the people you have around you.

You may think you still enjoy doing all of these things, but this stagnancy is
going to haunt you, because there isn't an infinite growth in these areas.
People, and companies, like predictability. Your voracious appetite is an
anomaly. And you can't keep it up forever, either, because eventually you'll
just plain get tired of it.

>I also feel like someone that is filling these roles at another company
probably knows/does it better job than I can.

Questionable. There are a lot of muppets in other companies that don't know
what they are doing.

Did the company grow over the years that you were there? I'm assuming it's not
as "small" now as it was when you started. If so, you grew along with the
company and you have a very good grasp of how to introduce and manage things
within a company over time as it grows (ie. transitioning/pain points).

>What roles out there fit the skill set of someone that is good at a whole lot
of things, but doesn't feel like a master/senior in any one of them?

People here are already playing Startup Bingo bullshit.

I doubt working at a startup will satisfy you, because that shit will feel
like Groundhog Day much like how it currently does for you. You'll get to go
through all the same nonsense over and over again.

Furthermore, the startup hustle is far riskier (with even less guarantee of a
payout) than the position that you are in, because your position is much
rarer. Anyone can choose to start a startup. Very few people can choose to be
at the top of the food chain in a company that is alive (and healthy, I hope)
after 7+ years. You didn't stumble into this position by accident.

You can leverage knowledge you don't know you have to do things that you
couldn't do at a startup, all while having financial backing, a solid team and
processes in place.

>My issue is I haven't had formal training in a lot of it

Most of what you know that is vital (that you've dismissed, I think) has no
formal training. I can get formally trained monkeys to sling code all day if I
wanted to, and while it wouldn't be done as well as I would have done it, it
would satisfy the larger picture and keep things moving forward. Sacrosanct
words for "engineers" who keep themselves busy writing more useless unit tests
I'm sure.

>So finally to my question: what role/job title I should be looking for?

Before you jump ship, see what options at the top of the company pyramid are
available for you, because if you leave and go elsewhere, and if you market
yourself as a "PHP Developer" or "Systems Admin", you'll more than likely just
move the clock back by 7 years and have to start all over again, in a
different company, doing the same shit you've done for the last 7 years.

~~~
ioblomov
While I don’t disagree with the options for generalists others presented, I
wholeheartedly agree with the advice to explore your options at your current
company before you jump ship. Talk to your supervisor or an exec decision-
maker you trust. If they recognize the value you’ve provided, they will bend
over backwards to craft a role to keep you. And if they don’t, that will be
the time to pursue the other options mentioned here.

------
0xff00ffee
Are you sure you're a "jack of all trades"? It sounds like you have interests
that cross different domains, but can you execute in those domains? You're not
likely to get a job as a generalist if your pitch is "I like everything",
unless you can demonstrate your accomplishments across a broad range, which
takes years to develop. With only 7 years expereince, it is not likely you've
achieved that.

That being said, I think you are a budding generalist and should continue to
take focused jobs in multiple areas and develop your depth professionally.

There is a reason why generalists tend to be in the 40's and 50's: it takes a
long time to get there.

EDIT: I want to point out that over 30+ years in the industry I can say that
the "generalist" disposition is rare. MANY engineers just want to put their
heads down, do their one task, and grind through life without ANY upsets.
Seriously, I've left companies, come back after years of absence, and seen
people doing the same tasks they were doing 10 years ago. That's fine if
that's your jam, but having the desire to learn and grow and be new at things
is RARE. So run with it!!!

~~~
Rapzid
Seven years is quite a long time. That's just over two whole years at three
separate companies! For somebody that can execute that's plenty of time to
build a portfolio of accomplishments.

~~~
0xff00ffee
Agreed, but these are accomplishments at two years of expertise level. Two
years is enough time to understand something, and that's generally the time
required to demonstrate a promotion from "junior engineer" to "engineer" at
big corporations. I guess it depends on your definition of generalist. I
expect at least 3-4 areas of senior level expertise, which is 15-28 years in
the business. Our definitions differ if you think it is someone who has
dabbled in 7-14 things at two years of depth.

Both opinions are equally valid, BTW. I'm not sure there is "watermark" of
what makes a generalist.

On the extreme far end, I know people who claim to "speak several languages"
and basically know how to say "yes, no, please, thank you," and consider that
sufficient to make the claim. Maybe that IS sufficient. I'm not actually sure,
but the cynic in me says, "no."

~~~
Rapzid
On the other hand according to the Foreign Service Institute(Department of
State) it takes about 1k hours for a native English speaker to reach
"proficiency" at speaking and reading "Languages with significant linguistic
and/or cultural differences from English": Level 4.

If your full-time job for seven years were learning spoken languages, you
could become proficient in 14 of them. Or maybe you want want to learn 7 of
them and leave room for nearly all level 1-3 languages. Maybe you just want to
spend 2 hours a day M-F(you slacker!), you'll only be able to learn Spanish,
Portuguese, Italian, French, German, and.. Dutch.

~~~
0xff00ffee
Funny, there's a submission on HN today about a person learning french to "B2"
level in 12 months, and this guide was provided:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_European_Framework_of_R...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_European_Framework_of_Reference_for_Languages#Common_reference_levels)

I didn't know there was a stratification!

------
animalnewbie
Another "jack of many trades here". I can write super fast assembly, can do
db, networking, web, sysadmin stuff. If anybody is looking to hire for part
time remote work.

