[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.