Hacker News Reader

Comment by fakedang | Hacker News Reader

I think a better formula would be to become a generalist, and then specialize in one thing deeply. Talking from experience within my circle of friends, the guys who specialized well ended up getting FAANG level jobs, but the guys who were "generalized specialists" were building great companies - doing what they wanted to do. If ever their passion company were to fail, they could always take comfort in being a generalist and hence being employable still (one of my friends is currently going through this stage after his well-funded startup crashed). A specialist would not be easily able to take that kind of monumental risk so easily.

View on HN

A generalist is better for starting a company because they can just get all the parts moving themselves, or pick up wherever the slack is. A specialist can get a specific and better paid job at a bigger company.

As a generalist you risk never getting anything off the ground, and being useless to people hiring because what they want is the specialist.

As a specialist you risk your specialization becoming obsolete, leaving you with nothing. You also risk picking an oversaturated specialization, or one that leaves you in a dead end role that pays less and less over time.

I think the job market for software developers is so much different now than it was, say, 8 years ago, that I'd probably advocate for becoming a specialist over a generalist. Getting your first job and making those initial connections will help you immensely in your career. But it's a tough call, both paths are very difficult and either way can work out if you're very persistent. And whichever path you choose is more likely to introduce you to like-minded people

I’m still trying to figure out how one becomes a “generalized specialist”. I would seem that once you establish yourself as a generalist, it becomes increasingly difficult to achieve specialization.

I think a better formula would be economic rather than philosophical: find a job that pays a lot of money whether you like it or not, then establish your career in something you're passionate about regardless of how lucrative it is

It's a fun style of advice-giving

> then establish your career in something you're passionate about regardless of how lucrative it is

Yeah this is the part I’m stuck at. You can’t just “establish your career in something you’re passionate about”, lucrative or not.

Think of it this way: good at everything, great at this one thing. It takes time and dedication, generally outside work hours.

My experience is no one gives a shit if it happens outside of work hours. Maybe if you can establish yourself to pseudo-celebrity status within the particular niche?

No no, hone your skills outside of work, but use them at work.

But there’s still the problem. If you established you career doing X and you’re preferred niche is Y, you aren’t going to get to use Y at work because it’s simply irrelevant to you’re career doing X.

Let’s say in a run of the mill enterprise web developer, but I have an interest in a particular niche, say low level network programming or game development. I can hone my skills in the latter all I want, but I’ll never get the chance use them at my day job and I’ll never get a job working in that nice because they’re only interested in already established professional experts.

I'll put it another way. Leadership skills and communication skills are mostly a generalized skillset, but they're pretty important in any job, however specialized it is. Financial management is a skill that's kind of generic and commodities, but still important and definitely buildable if you want to start a company.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com