Ask HN: How do you differentiate yourself in the face of commodification of devs

1 points by thomgo 5 years ago | 2 comments

I'm early in my career and I'm wondering how I can differentiate/specialize. I imagine that as you progress in your career, the differentiation becomes valuable to employers and allows you to stand out.

Personally, I've been interested in building full-stack and product-side of things, so I'm unsure how I can differentiate myself with these.

This point also ties in with what certain threads were discussing on the LinkedIn gig platform post from today, where they mentioned that in the long run development would become a 'gig' thing.

ThrowawayR2 5 years ago |

> "I'm wondering how I can differentiate/specialize"

I'm not sure what the question really is here. The generic answer is simply to find a skill you're interested in specializing in, learn about it, and apply it to your work so that you have practical experience in it. That applies to both tech skills and soft skills.

mikece 5 years ago |

Three off the top of my head: soft skills, public speaking, seeking mentorship and mentoring others.