

Ask HN: Ace of spades, jack of all trades or something else? - yulaow

Title explanation: I know we, as developers, are a very heterogeneous group of people and, as it, we adopt different strategies to be successful in our profession.<p>So, which is your personal strategy about improving your knowledge and skillset?<p>Are you an ace of spades, like a guru on a single platform&#x2F;os&#x2F;language and stick to it? A Jack of all trades, open minded and trying to learn all possible (and mainly useful for your situation, place, job, etc) languages but not mastering any of it? Or just something in the middle like a person with a very strong knowledge in one field and an handful of other skills?<p>Why did you choose that strategy and which is your current skillset?
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conroy
My personal strategy has been that of becoming T-shaped, a term I learned from
Valve's employee handbook[0]:

    
    
        People who are both generalists (highly skilled at a 
        broad set of valuable things - the top of the T) and
        also experts (among the best in their field within a
        narrow discipline - the vertical leg of the T).
    

I think you need have a broad understanding of many tools, languages, and
fields, but you should also aim for expertise in one field.

[0]:
[http://www.valvesoftware.com/company/Valve_Handbook_LowRes.p...](http://www.valvesoftware.com/company/Valve_Handbook_LowRes.pdf)

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candeira
T-shaped is the way to go. Go wide in a broad swath of disciplines and skills,
especially with the ability to combine them and collaborate in them (i.e
understanding design and sales as well as technology, and being able to work
well with designers, marketing people as well as with other programmers), go
deep and narrow in one or two subfields in which you are a specialist.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-shaped_skills](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-shaped_skills)

My favourite people to work with are all T-shaped in one way or another. I
learnt programming on the job after having worked in media and the art world,
and having (not very successfully, but to great personal learning) ran a small
company, so I'd like to think I'm versatile that way.

~~~
grumps
Very interesting... I think I just found a great way to describe myself.

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agibsonccc
I found it valuable to specialize in a subset of machine learning. From there,
I tend to specialize in the JVM ecosystem while having a decent background in
node/frontend and python. The hybrid skillset has been amazing for a swath of
application areas.

Long story short: T shaped as well.

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davidsmith8900
\- Im more of something in between. Like as of now im jack of all trades, but
I will like to be an ace,of spades in all platforms.

