> 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.)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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...

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.

Tim Ferris has an interesting podcast on subject: https://tim.blog/2007/09/14/the-top-5-reasons-to-be-a-jack-o...

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

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.

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.

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/

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.

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.

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".

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

>...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.

Some of this might be because specialists are perceived to need less on-boarding, and it's very easy to overestimate the cost of on-boarding.

Once fully on board, I think many would agree the generalist is desirable.

Another factor is, as someone else pointed out, that there's a huge difference between "learned, skilled generalist" and "inexperienced who hasn't yet learned much" and both characters may go by the generalist name.

> But less beneficial to you, because no one wants generalists, and you’re likely doing 1.5 people’s job for 1 persons pay.

People want generalists, they just don't want to hire them. Or rather it's hard to find a company who has a job description that emphasizes a generalist skill set.

But my experience has been once you are in a small to medium size company, they are happy to have someone who is flexible and adaptable and game to do different tasks.

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.

Being a generalist is hard, especially when fields are changing so rapidly (like web dev)

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.

Indeed, and given the costs to become the very best, it's often a choice like this. Say you need to hire athletes with in experience swimming, running, and gymnastics to design some classes for your school. Would you rather hire:

- 3 gold medal Olympians, each of whom have medaled in the 3 areas

- 1 bronze medal Olympian who has single-handedly medaled in swimming, running, and gymnastics?

Actually it's more likely that this longer quote is a recent formulation.

See the research in this thread: https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/408782/is-jack-o...

Definitely, maybe I don't get the joy of a being a "X Developer", yet it allows me to bring tasks to good harbour, an in a fashion driven industry, it makes relatively easy to jump.

In my experience, a master of one is most of the time better described as a jack of one trade, anyway.

My ex liked to point out, “Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.”

I prefer "jack of all trades, master of learning".

Just because information is conflicting and different doesn’t mean it’s truer than your first exposure.

No evidence for that etymology.