
On Being a Generalist - flaviocopes
https://flaviocopes.com/generalist/
======
JoshTriplett
> Some companies only hire specialists. If you’re Google, it makes little
> sense to hire a generalist, I think.

Having been through a Google interview and offer process, this seems exactly
backwards: Google selects heavily for generalists, so that they have people
who can adapt to and integrate different technologies. (I'm sure they do hire
specialists in various areas, but their interview process optimizes for
generalists.)

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

~~~
umvi
> No, they hire Competitive Programmers

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

~~~
zerr
Yes, ageism is one of the consequences (or reason) of such interview practice.

~~~
username90
Is there any evidence that older engineers are worse at these interviews than
younger ones?

~~~
umvi
It's not that older engineers are worse at them (from an intelligence
standpoint), it's that younger engineers have more time to study for them.

Take a standardized test like the LSAT. Young single people can spend 4-5
hours a day taking practice LSAT exams. Older married people with small
children barely have _2_ spare hours after work let alone 4 (without
neglecting their spouse/kids).

Assuming both the older and younger devs in this scenario have identical IQs,
who is likely to do better come LSAT test day? It's a war of time attrition.

------
alexfromapex
I’m a generalist and I would 100% recommend it over being a specialist because
you get to see the whole picture. You start to notice patterns across
different programming paradigms that make you a better developer. You learn
techniques to quickly teach yourself and learn about the problem domain which
translate into other parts of your life besides computers. I’ve taught myself
how to work on cars using deductive logic when I get stuck and software
engineering principles to make decisions when I’m afraid I might break
something and I’ve improved my personal finances with data science.

~~~
hopia
What I understood is this author's definition of a generalist is someone who
expands his scope beyond just programming. To things like design, business
development, hr management, recruiting, raising funds etc.

Generally, it may not be so common to find an individual who's almost equally
as passionate about all of these things. In the end we got limited time on
this planet and can't learn everything.

~~~
ewindal
If you ever want to rise in the ranks as an engineer, design and business are
practically required.

~~~
viklove
Building the thing right is useless unless you're building the right thing.

~~~
geggam
Perfectionism is never allowed in a business environment.

In fact most of those folks turn toxic because they don't get their way

~~~
cat199
he said 'right' thing not 'perfect' thing - certainly those that building the
'right' thing do better in a business environment than those that build the
'wrong' thing, no?

------
mxuribe
I've been currently looking for employment and job descriptions nowadays are
ridiculous. In one paragraph or section of a job description, they'll
specifically state that they want a generalist, and in the very next section,
they'll state explicitly that they want a specialist; just crazy.

Also, throughout my job history I've been more of a generalist; sort of like a
modern day devops (but much broader in scope/responsibilities), and at least a
decade before it was even an accepted term. And, almost for all of my jobs the
hiring manager wants a specialist but "agrees to hire me __EVEN THOUGH __I
seem to be more of a generalist " \- as if they're doing me a favor...But in
almost every job I've ever had, all of my bosses, stakeholders and
peers/partners explicitly state that they're so glad that I'm on board (for a
project, program, etc.) specifically because of my generalist nature...and
they can't possibly have achieved their goals with a specialist, etc. No
doubt, there are plenty of areas where specialists are absolutely essential,
and really the only ones that could effectively complete what needs to be
done. But, in my experience, soooo many, many people (of any seniority level,
of any age, background, etc.) in positions of power (or at least positions of
decision-making) suck royally at deciding when a good generalist is needed.
There is some crazy cognitive dissonance out there.

~~~
andrenotgiant
>...job descriptions nowadays are ridiculous. In one paragraph or section of a
job description, they'll specifically state that they want a generalist, and
in the very next section, they'll state explicitly that they want a
specialist; just crazy.

I wouldn't put much weight in the specific wording of job descriptions,
they're often an amalgamation of previous similar roles at the company and
other companies.

>There is some crazy cognitive dissonance out there.

I agree, the hiring decision process within a company seems so susceptible to
one simple narrative like "are they a specialist?" taking way too much
importance. I think it has something to do with the fact that most of the
decision makers are spending most of their time on other things, don't have
time to think deeply about who to hire.

~~~
mxuribe
> ...I wouldn't put much weight in the specific wording of job descriptions...

Agreed, and normally I wouldn't care as much. But I'm actively look for work
right now...so to invest time and effort only to be met with rejection and
disappointment(because of such mismatches), it gets frustrating really fast.

Oh and 100% agreed on your other notes!

------
Benjammer
Just remember the adage:

 _A specialist will tend to underestimate a generalist 's ability to
specialize, when they choose to focus on one thing; A generalist will tend to
underestimate how deep any given specialty actually extends._

~~~
Igelau
I don't think that's really an adage. It's also flawed. A broader experience
gives you a much better idea of how much you don't know.

~~~
hammock
An an adage specialist, I can tell you it is an adage, and you have no idea
how deep the adage world goes.

------
zeroonetwothree
Google hires tons of generalists. The reasoning here is very flawed.

Hiring specialists is higher variance. They could be amazing for your company
or it could be that you need to do something slightly different and they are
mostly useless. Generalists are safer but with less upside.

Of course this dichotomy is false anyway. Everyone exists on a spectrum. No
one has only a single skill at “max level” and no one has every skill. It’s
more a question of where on the spectrum you want to be.

~~~
forkexec
Most them are SA-/SW-SREs, SRMs or other technical leads or managers.

~~~
hopia
I was also thinking if it's like _generalist in tech_. Or does Google
seriously expect their software engineering recruits to generalists who are
proficient in design, copy writing, B2B sales, digital marketing, management
etc.?

Edit: phrasing

------
moksly
I think the authors scope is way too narrow. If you’re a react developer who
also knows vue, and perhaps enough ops to get side projects to run in
Azure/AWS then you’re still a specialist. It’s easy to forget, because
development is what we do, but it’s actually a rather specialist skill in
itself. I say this as someone who has been part of several attempts at
implementing things like RPA or even Sharepoint to non-developers, with a full
expectation of genuinely smart people being capable of doing very simple drag
and drop programming, and see them fail time and time again. Exactly because
software development is a specialist field.

A generalist is someone who does software development, but also does project
management and implementation (teaching users how to use software). Three
distinct specialist fields, and this is where being a generalist can be
valuable for your organisation. Because you get things done. But less
beneficial to you, because no one wants generalists, and you’re likely doing
1.5 people’s job for 1 persons pay.

~~~
arcturus17
I think you're focusing too much on the strict semantics of "generalist" \-
whether the word is accurate or not will largely depend on context and how
much you "zoom out".

I could argue with you that someone who does development, project management
and implementation is still a software specialist, and that a real generalist
is someone who can sell, or someone who can play piano, as well as do the
aforementioned.

I am a freelance tech consultant or run what you could call a microagency...
Sometimes I design or code my own projects, whereas others I outsource them
and act as a project manager. I deal with my own marketing and sales,
successfully so, as I've gotten projects at really big companies by pitching
against agencies orders of magnitude my size.

In my case, being a generalist pays well, and it's actually the only way
forward in terms of growth. The scenario where I could see myself being useful
_to others_ is as a co-founder or as others have said, in certain small or
medium businesses.

But I otherwise generally agree that companies of a certain size only think
they want generalists but they don't put their money where their mouth is.

I was interviewing for product manager positions some time ago, and I got the
impression that interviewers didn't care about my generalist skills
(designing, coding, marketing) - they just wanted someone who had done...
_exactly_ product management, with very similar responsibilities to the
position at stake. I have "Product Manager" in my CV, but some time in the
past and often in somewhat different scopes (the role's definition is quite
loose) to the hiring companies, putting me at a severe disadvantage in the
hiring game.

I always think that being a generalist is entirely possible, but you have to
be ready to carve out your place in a world that is mostly built for
specialists.

~~~
kthejoker2
Non sequitur: can we chat about your consultancy? Looking to potentially do
the same myself and would love to pick your brain for some dos and don'ts.

If you're willing, email me, username without the 2 at gmail, and no offense
if you can't.

~~~
arcturus17
I've mailed you.

------
caseymarquis
Practically speaking, as a developer applying to a startup, I'm going to say
I'm a generalist and make a giant list of technologies and projects I've
worked with. If applying at Bigco, I'm going to list the relevant specialties
they're looking for and not confuse the poor person working in HR who has no
idea what any of those technologies are. Specializing in all of the
technologies the article listed isn't exactly a herculean feat.

If a position requires an actual specialist, a "We're forking Postgres and
building a globally distributed database with acid transactions committed to
all AWS regions without having to think about the topology of node
deployment." kind of specialist, I'm not going to apply, and we've hit the
point where you actually need to think about becoming a specialist.

As I get older, I'm learning that understanding technology is just the tip of
the iceberg anyway. It doesn't matter how well engineered a solution is when
Google Sheets solves 90% of the same problem for free with real time
networking functionality. And that doesn't matter either, when ITAR
restrictions keep you from using Google Sheets.

------
pdpi
The word "generalist" tends to be used where "unspecialised" would've been
more appropriate.

Junior, unspecialised engineers are exactly that: unspecialised. They haven't
had the the time to become good at any one thing.

At the mid-weight range, some engineers start to focus on a particular area
and become specialists. Others seek knowledge across the spectrum and become
generalists. Finally, others remain unspecialised. The trend continues at the
senior level.

I am most definitely a generalist, and don't bring as much depth to the table
as my more specialised peers. But, when working on one layer of the stack, I
can leverage my knowledge of the adjacent layers to produce something much
more coherent. I can bridge the gap between two teams of specialists who don't
understand each other and help them reach agreement. I'm pretty decent at
helping product people figure out how all their moving pieces map to the
various teams we have available.

These are just some of the things that generalists give you that specialists
can't. To rebut the article's argument directly — I don't know about Google,
but Facebook definitely explicitly hires generalists by the truckload.

~~~
bryanmgreen
That's a very keen observation.

As a senior-level professional generalist who is looking for work after being
laid off, that makes me look at the language of my resume in a different
light.

------
stared
Often we cherish specialists quoting "Jack of all trades, master of none".

Curiously enough, the full version of the original has a twist:

“A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master
of one."

[https://www.theodysseyonline.com/7-phrases-youve-been-
misquo...](https://www.theodysseyonline.com/7-phrases-youve-been-misquoting)

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

Then again, sometimes that guru is also needed.

~~~
jetrink
This is a good observation and applies to non-professional skills as well. For
example, you can learn to repair your clothes at an 85% level using only a $20
sewing kit and some YouTube videos. Taking a well-loved shirt to a tailor is a
chore, throwing it away is sad, but mending it is gratifying. Yet somehow,
despite the amount of knowledge freely available on the internet, things like
this are increasingly neglected or left to specialists.

~~~
tincholio
Yes, I meant it in the general sense, actually, though it probably didn't come
through like that.

------
eximius
This article is wildly wrong because effort and skill is non-linear.

I can be in the 90th percentile in a handful of areas if I'm a talented
generalist. The effort needed after a certain point becomes exponential.

Truly, what is the difference between a React developer and a developer who
can use React well? The latter can ALSO use other things? Under this framing,
who would want to be the specialist?

And also, as others have mentioned, Google strongly prefers generalists for
both practical and philosophical reasons. Internal mobility is high and
they're just scooping up talent because they have more work than people. They
often hire into a pool that is then matched to a team later. There is a reason
their primary job posting is 'Location - Software Engineer'. They can't know
what you'll do, so you must be good or learnable at everything. Finally, from
a philosophical standpoint, strong generalists are cross-functional within
their field and that's generally valued.

------
delaaxe
Tim Ferris has an interesting podcast on subject:
[https://tim.blog/2007/09/14/the-top-5-reasons-to-be-a-
jack-o...](https://tim.blog/2007/09/14/the-top-5-reasons-to-be-a-jack-of-all-
trades/)

“Jack of all trades, master of _many_ ” and “specialization is for insects”

------
me551ah
I have always preferred being a generalist since I tend to get bored quickly.
Once you are a generalist you can build any side project you can think of
without any external help.

It fascinates me how you can cover almost all of the software development
landscape using just a couple of languages ( C# , Javascript and Java). C#
runs on servers ( .NET core ), Desktop(WinForms and WPF), mobile platforms (
Xamarin Forms), Java runs well on servers and Android and Javascript can also
be used on both servers(node) and clients(Apache Cordova for mobile support
and Electron on Desktop). In my career I've worked with web development (
html/js frameworks, express ), databases(dynamodb and mysql),
microservices(node, .net core, Sparkjava), Mobile( Android, Xamarin Forms,
Windows phone and Blackberry) and even was an Engineering Manager for over 3
years. And all it took was to learn 3 languages.

~~~
tonyarkles
> Once you are a generalist you can build any side project you can think of
> without any external help.

I agree wholeheartedly. Maybe it's because my grandfather was a farmer and I
learned a lot from him, but from a very young age it's always been "what do I
need to learn to be able to do this?" instead of "who can I find who knows how
to do this?"

> almost all of the software development landscape

Embedded would like to have a word with you :)

I do agree with you though, at this point that is a pretty good set of 3
languages that cover a lot of breadth for application (web/mobile/desktop)
development.

------
non-entity
Personally, I'm a generalist in the worst sense in that I've read about a lot
and can talk for day about various things, but am only proficient in one or
two things.

~~~
minhaz23
lmk when you find a fix for this :(

~~~
elwell
Actually work on stuff (paid or hobby); then, time.

------
matt2000
One thing to watch out for if you want to be a generalist is feelings of
inadequacy. Probably because you end up knowing something about a lot of
things, you are very aware that people are better than you at each of those
things. It can be tough.

However, I would still heartily recommend it. It's fun! You generally are
learning how to make new things, rather than new ways to make the same things.

~~~
Benjammer
In those cases you have to lean into your strengths. You need to be helping
those specialists point in the right direction, providing cover for their
weaknesses, so you share credit as a teammate in the success. Generalists are
peer leaders.

------
Balgair
David Epstein's _Range_ [0] is a great look into this seeming paradox of broad
v. deep. The intro chapters of Tiger Woods with golf versus Roger Federer with
tennis are the thesis: There are 'kind' learning environments and 'unkind'
learning environments.

'Kind' learning environments are golf, chess, SAT prep, etc. Here, you just
need to grind out the hours. The feedback is fairly quick and the objective is
clear. You should specialize early on to grind out the time, like Tiger Woods.

'Unkind' learning environments are tennis, jazz, business, etc. Here you need
a lot of general information to see weak patterns. You need to borrow from
other domains and read a lot of unconnected stuff. The feedback is not timely
and the objective is not clear. You should 'graze' on a lot of other things to
become 'elite' in your chosen field. Roger Federer played a lot of sports
before choosing tennis 'late' in life.

The book is very detailed yet readable, a great targeting at a general
audience. The section on music is fascinating reading.

Generalist or specialist bents are both good ideas, but it depends on the
environment.

[0] [https://davidepstein.com/the-range/](https://davidepstein.com/the-range/)

~~~
folli
"Federer, who started playing tennis at age eight, became Switzerland's junior
champion when he was 14."

Is that what's considered late?

~~~
Balgair
Per the book, his dedication was not considered appropriate as he played other
sports and had other interests.

------
JMTQp8lwXL
The conversation is missing a dimension: How big can the domain be? One can be
a specialist in JavaScript, for example. But you could just as well say you
specialize in React or Vue, as the article says. A React developer might say
person who does all JavaScript is a generalist; the JavaScript developer could
point to a full stack engineer and say "that's an actual generalist".

The opaqueness makes it difficult to discuss the topic further.

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

~~~
arcturus17
Or a _front-end generalist_?

The use of one word or another indeed seems to depend on the optics.

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

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

------
dpc_pw
Knowing only React, or one programming language doesn't make you a specialist.
It just means you have very little knowledge and/or experience. What's next?
"if statement developer"?

Software engineering as a whole, is one specialization. Maaaybe backend vs
fronted could be made into two meaningful specializations. Or "distributed
systems", "game development", "financial systems" etc areas. But not one
framework/ PL. Come on. :D

I don't want to bash on people who actually only know one language/framework.
It's OK, it can pay your bills, etc. Maybe you also have great skills and
interests in non-software areas. But just don't fool yourself thinking "I'm a
React specialist".

~~~
mettamage
You are a specialist if that's the only thing you're doing. And such a word
becomes meaningful once you're doing it +3 to +5 years, IMO. I've seen a
modicum of posts on HN that was something along the lines of "I've been a C++
developer for the past 12 years, how do I become a web developer?" So I guess
there's something to it.

At least in some of the cases.

~~~
dpc_pw
> "I've been a C++ developer for the past 12 years, how do I become a web
> developer?"

That's just wrong way to put it. This C++ has been used for something (kernel,
embedded, system level programming, games). That's the meaningful area of
"specialization", with C++ being one of the tools used there.

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

~~~
Tehchops
This, IMHO, is the right answer.

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

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

------
m3kw9
Think of a specialist as putting all your eggs in one basket, high risk high
reward ratio. Generalist is like investing in an index, can’t go wrong most
times, but you won’t hit any home runs

~~~
Scea91
This is quite simplified, particularly the part that generalists can't hit a
home run.

For example, David Epstein in his book ([https://davidepstein.com/the-
range/](https://davidepstein.com/the-range/)) talks about outsider advantage.
Sometimes all specialists in the field have similar ideas, but an outsider can
think about an interesting analogy to other problems that seem unrelated and
come up with many novel solutions to difficult problems that seem highly
specialized.

------
aakimura
The main assumption of this post is that humans have limited resources to
store and compute knowledge. This is shortsighted. Polymaths, though rare, are
an example that excellence can be achieved in many domains. Even in the
“normal” range of human capability, there are many roles that are designed for
a generalist. Healthcare is the prime example. You can’t have specialists
handling primary care because they can’t see the human body holistically, but
as an instance of what they have specialized into. Product management is also
a domain you can’t put specialists in charge. You need people who can
translate user / customer needs into technical specifications and even between
specialists so they can understand the tasks to be done (think health
analytics or other interdisciplinary activities). You also need to be able to
understand all faces of a problem to provide an efficient solution. Sometimes
you need someone sufficiently unattached to kill features and products that
are no longer financially viable. Startup founders, although technical, end up
doing everything because of financial constraints. In this case the
“regression” towards generalism is a survival skill. IMO, generalists are
skilled people who have the ability to learn and adapt faster than the average
people and are able to provide reasonable solutions.

------
JoshTriplett
There's nothing stopping you from being both broad and deep. Be an expert on a
few things, knowledgeable on more, and familiar with many more, and grow all
of those sets over time.

------
bryanrasmussen
I'm a generalist I guess.

How did I get to be a generalist. Because I was a very narrow specialist at
one point and people asked me to do other things that were outside the
specialty and I learned to do them.

I kept doing that and learning different things as I moved between jobs as a
bit of necessity.

My original specialty won't get me hired anymore. there isn't enough
requirement for it.

I have several skills under my general skill set that I am better at than most
specialists in those skills I work with because despite their being
specialized inside that one skill I have been doing it longer and deeper than
them. But I am a generalist.

I know I'm a generalist because a top consultant recruiting company asked me a
couple weeks ago to cut out most of my skills from their database while they
were trying to sell me to a client because those skills had nothing to do with
the assignment and they made me look like a generalist.

Basically the company wanted a front end developer with React skills. I don't
know what they think I've been doing the last 20 years if that's supposed to
be my only skill. Being a specialist I suppose.

------
iamben
I'm a fairly capable generalist. For many years I struggled with pretty real
imposter syndrome. It's a lot better recently, and it certainly helps to work
with people who can remind you it's a strength - but being a young person
without a precise specialism in a room with 'specialists' I found very hard,
regardless of my abilities or what I could offer.

I guess it's very daunting to be sat across a table with the head of something
(a person with a supposed very deep subject knowledge), when you think at any
moment they'll say "what are you doing here?" It took a long time to realise
that even if my depth of knowledge was not the same as theirs, having an
understanding of things outside of what they knew could often change the
direction of the conversation and how they (and the business) would approach
things.

I'm sure I'm not the only person who's felt this way. If you're there right
now - stick with it, everything gets easier!

~~~
deltron3030
Genralist vs. specialist is a false dichotomy imo, because you can specialize
in general knowledge that will make you knowledgeable about other areas simply
because it has a broader reach. Knowledge works like a cascade, if you're good
at a higher level thing it will apply to more lower level categories.

------
heisenbit
Being a great specialist commands a premium but can be tricky as niches can
evaporate and then you are master of nothing.

Being a generalist can be tricky as you do not have a differentiating factor
making it harder to get hired into highly paid jobs but easier to adapt.

People and communication skills are often more important than any of this but
hiring in our industry is sadly keyword driven. As a very broad generalist I
found myself in a fairly turbulent corporate environment. It should have been
easy to get the jobs I wanted but it did not work so well - what I got were
firefighting jobs leading to more firefighting jobs. I adopted now a portfolio
of related technology and skills as my core and am marketing them actively.
Works much better in getting work I like. It does not change who I am but it
helps to get the tasks I want and also give me the platform to say no to
things outside of the portfolio.

~~~
k__
Funny thing is, some things are considered general while being rather special.

Sure, being a "software consultant" is more genral than being a "mobile
software consultant" but overall, most people on earth are neither.

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

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

------
matthewmacleod
My experience suggests that successful organisations need a good mixture of
specialists and generalists to be successful – although "specialists" is maybe
the wrong term, and it's more about having a team with a diverse set of skills
in different areas.

It's beneficial to have individuals that have a broad understanding of how
complex systems work without necessarily being able to develop all of the
components in full themselves; there's equally a requirement for developers
who are capable of understanding and implementing all the detailed intricacies
of particular fields, like front-end or embedded code. The former are usually
able to develop working solutions to a given problem, but they often end up
being sub-optimal; the latter can often implement those solutions more
effectively, but can struggle to effectively work with a broader system.

This idea is related to Cringely's military analogy about the different kinds
of personalities and skillsets needed to build companies – the "commandos",
the "infantry", and the "police". The "commandos" can move quickly to build
creative or disruptive solutions to complex problems, but can leave unfinished
tasks in their wake, and get bored easily. The "infantry" build on top of the
work of the "commandos" – refining, improving, and professionalising. But they
need more infrastructure, process, and understanding to do this, which can
slow them down. And the "police" are there to manage the system when the speed
of development slows down – the focus is on maintenance, economy of scale, and
more-stable-if-less-exciting work.

It's all a bit of a thin metaphor to be sure, but I've definitely seen these
and similar personalities in different companies, all offering different kinds
of value. Nobody belongs exclusively to one group, in the same way that nobody
is exclusively a generalist or specialist. But I've found that understanding
how different personalities and "skill shapes" can contribute is important for
building an effective and productive team.

------
jkkkk11
In the summer I will finish my MBA and I consider myself a generalist. I never
had a real focus during my bachelor and my master studies and now I am a
little bit afraid that this could result in problems finding a job.

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overcast
Unless it's for a highly specialized role, generalists with some stronger
attributes always seems like the appropriate way to go. We hired a network
engineer to handle our entire global network, spanning hundreds of offices in
many countries. He really knows his shit, but his ignorance of most anything
else in the world is offering staggering. To the point we're not sure if he's
just trying to be an instigator of stupidity. He truly is a one trick pony,
but is very good at the trick. The rest of us handle everything else for him,
including how to catch a train.

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pgcj_poster
> You’re a generalist if you know and use React, but also know Vue, you can
> design a page in Figma and translate that design into a React component with
> CSS. Plus, you also know how to deploy an application to Heroku.

Uhh… A generalist is someone like Toby Fox, who can design a game, code it,
make the art, compose the music, and write all the dialogue; not someone who
can use several barely-different flavors of webshit.

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prlambert
"If you’re Google, it makes little sense to hire a generalist, I think."

I'm a Googler and a generalist. This is of course just my opinion.

In the two roles I've had, being a generalist is far better than being
specialized: as a Product Manager and as a founder on a new project.

A big part of being a PM is being the connective tissue between specialist ICs
and silo'd organizational structures. A joke is that we are 'failed engineers'
but many of us just got equally interested in UX, entrepreneurship, and
business strategy as code. We end up not being the expert in any of these. But
we are pretty well qualified to coordinate among them. I.e. our strength is
we're generalists. It's a bit like the nervous system that coordinates the
heart and lungs and other specialist organs.

I'm now in a part of the company (Area 120) dedicated to funding new projects
and businesses. The shape of the talent needs are very much like an external
startup. We're headcount limited to 3-5 per project, so we really need people
who can design and code, develop sales pipelines and do product management,
"full stack" engineers and so forth. These people are super valuable where I
am, because they are generalists.

I think anywhere entrepreneurial will need many generalists. I believe think
Amazon has this culture too.

This also why I can create a lot more value in a company like this than if I
was an individual contractor. I see comments on HN sometimes along the lines
of "companies must be underpaying you, because if the value of your labor
wasn't greater than your pay, they wouldn't make any profit." This is correct
in a very narrow sense but missing the hugely important piece that the value I
can produce embedded in a large organization is much, much greater than I can
as a singleton (because I'm a generalist). As a rough example, maybe as a
contractor I can create $100/hour worth of value and for the sake of argument
can capture nearly all of that. Because whatever discrete task I'm hired for
I'm Ok but not world class at it. But in a company like Google, I am
leveraging huge assets and connecting them. If I identify opportunities and
coordinate execution between (for example) specialist orgs like Search and
Maps, the value I can create is massive because of the size of the levers.
It's nearly unbounded but could easily be worth 1000s of dollars an hour. So
if they pay me $200, everyone wins. The pie is grown, by being an embedded
generalist, and I'm still doing better off than I would independently (even if
my employer captures a bunch of the value I produced – which is fair, since
they also provided the levers).

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k__
I see it less as "being a generalist" and more as "being a specialist at
learning new things".

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pgt
In October 2019 I delivered a keynote at PyConZA arguing that you should aim
to be a generalist that connects specialists:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mn06eCDur2o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mn06eCDur2o)

In short: in sparse graphs, mobility dominates.

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nicodds
I think being a generalist is definitely a value. In a near future,
specialists will be substituted by artificial intelligence (AI). Generalists,
instead, will stay at their place, since they do what AI (currently) can't:
making connections.

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hinkley
I thought I was generalist until I noticed that some skills I claimed to have,
I hadn’t actually used in a decade or longer. Do I really still know that
stuff? How many problems I had to deal with are resolved?

I think perhaps I am instead a serial specialist.

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davidhariri
When I was at the earliest stages of my first startup, I learned how
dangerously unproductive a specialist can be as a first hire.

Now, with my second startup, I see how important and impactful specialists are
as the complexity and size of our tasks have grown.

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dorkwood
Surely all specialists in tech end up as generalists eventually. If you were a
jQuery specialist 10 years ago, you've pivoted to something else by now. How
many times does that need to happen before you become more general than
special?

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lazyant
There's a good recent book about being a generalist
[https://davidepstein.com/the-range/](https://davidepstein.com/the-range/)

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nokya
Being a generalist is a luxury given mostly to people who can't do anything
better than not enough. And more often than not, this means managing
specialists ..

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bryanmgreen
As marketing generalist, I can tell you I have been heavily penalized in
career searches for not having specific skillsets

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msamwald
I think the most rewarding path is becoming a specialist in something very
important and broadly applicable.

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DonHopkins
I've seen people on hn describe themselves as "serial specialists". (However,
nobody admits to being a "parallel generalist".)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22337342](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22337342)

>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.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22335697](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22335697)

>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).

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4317080](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4317080)

>Going for knowledge just because it sounds cool isn't going to be a motivator
strong enough for success. Find stuff you're interested in and dive into
those. The way to become a well-rounded person is to become obsessive in many
things (possibly not simultaneously) that are unusual in some way. In fact,
learning anything will feel like specialization, and in fact being a serial
specialist is probably the most viable way to become a "Renaissance man"
today.

>Note that the first thing that came to my mind when I read your post was: "To
be a true Renaissance man, you need to have been dead for 400 years". I won't
write it here :)

The Church of the Subgenius has a similar concept called the "Short Duration
Personal Savior" (or ShorDurPerSav, the proper Tibetian term):

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10045688](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10045688)

>Wow; just wow. Thank you for filling that gaping hole in my education with
Dick Tuck [1] [2]! My new short duration personal savior [2].

[http://www.subgenius.com/bigfist/goods/shordurpersavs/X0012_...](http://www.subgenius.com/bigfist/goods/shordurpersavs/X0012_ShorDurPerSav_Lesson.html)

>From: Purple Kitty <pkitty@netcom.com>

>-= SHORT DURATION PERSONAL SAVIORS - A LESSON =-

>BEGINNER LEVEL - CLEARED FOR ALL BOBBIES - BEGINNER LEVEL - CLEARED FOR

>Shockingly, some Bobbies are still unclear as to what a Short Duration
Personal Savior is. The concept of the Short Duration Personal Savior (or
ShorDurPerSav, the proper Tibetian term) is a new one-- traditional religions
tend to emphasize "unwavering servitude" over convenience. But is absolute
devotion to one savior always best? Buddha is a wonderful role model for
certain aspects of life, but when that po'bucker shoves you out of the way as
he walks by, don't you wish that you worshipped George Foreman instead, if
only for the next few minutes?

>Well, you can! The Church of the SubGenius heartily endorses the concept of
disposable saviors, or ShorDurPerSavs. Choose your messiah to fit the
situation. If peace and compassion are what you need right now, follow the
teachings of Gandhi. Later, when you need to cut a business deal, emulate the
wisdom of Sam Walton. When you need a witty remark on the spot, let Samuel
Clemens into your heart to inspire you. And when you need Slack in your life,
sell your soul to "Bob".

>"Bob" is the most frequently invoked of our infinitely varied Short Duration
Personal Saviors, with good reason. He has Slack--he IS Slack. He symbolizes
the "easy life", where one follows the Path of Least Resistance and gains
Slack effortlessly. But no one is expected to worship "Bob" 24/7! If you're
trying to get that PC to work, choosing "Bob" as your ShorDurPerSav will
hinder you far more than helping you! "Bob" couldn't use a PC if he wanted to
(though he sold more of them last year than IBM and Packard Bell put
together)! Read through Stephen Levy's _Hackers_ and let the TMRC be your
ShorDurPerSavs! There ARE no limits!

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sourabhforu
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