Ask HN: Is it OK to not have a “thing”?

[bhub]

I'm currently going through a bit of a struggle with what I do. I've been programming for over 20 years now and in that time I've explored a lot of corners of software development and computers in general.

I started with C/C++ and wrote games and played around with game engines. I learned PHP and SQL to generate basic "dynamic" sites. I learned Python and wrote commandline tools and Qt applications. Moved to Flask/Django to create websites and extended my knowledge with JS, React, and learned how to set up servers. I played around with security, reverse engineering, exploit development, web hacking, and malware analysis. I'm learning Elixir now. I've dicked around with arduinos, raspis, and simple circuitry. I've put in place devops processes and tools where I work. I dabbled with image processing, VR, and interactive experiences. Yet I wouldn't consider myself particularly knowledgeable in any one of those things.

There's people who find their niche and they learn more about it each day and never tire of it, but I can't seem to find that thing myself. At work I often do a number of different things, so again, I'm not solely focused on one thing.

The biggest issue is that it makes looking for work difficult as I can't say I'm an expert in say micro services, or I'm a React pro, nor that I am an expert Python developer.

Apart from saying you're a "generalist", how do you best sell yourself when you don't have a specialisation or a specific area you are focused on?

[eyelidlessness]

As a “generalist”, the way I’ve been able to “sell myself” is to develop a reputation for:

- Distinct talent in problem identification/discovery (i.e. see problems other people miss before they cause pain)

- Consistently producing designs that address the core problem in a general but extensible/flexible way (i.e. design to solve a class of problems rather than a particular one)

- Deliver [r]evolutionary value (i.e. produce solutions which amplify/multiply the value the rest of the team can deliver)

- Being confident out of the spotlight (i.e. trusting that my contributions will be valued and recognized by my peers and leadership even if it doesn’t show up in end user release notes or investor decks)

All of that adds up to my career increasingly being focused on library development, process optimization, tooling, plumbing, etc. It’s personally more gratifying to me than a lot of shiny feature work, and it improves the lives of my teammates and in turn the work they can produce.

[bhub]

Thanks. It is really helpful to see the generalist skills described in these ways. I've never been very confident and hated "selling" myself on a CV because I could never saw what I've done as particularly sellable.

[eyelidlessness]

I’ll add that being able and willing to communicate these is crucial for job seeking. It’s been years since my resume included a list of responsibilities or products; instead I list achievements and the value they provided/enabled/enhanced.

[zug_zug]

Nobody has a "thing," it's all branding. As soon as the wave crests on a certain piece of hype, very suddenly it's nobody's thing anymore.

What we all do is we omit a ton of stuff from our resume and narrative to make it sound like we fit better into these artificially small roles. If you get bored with a single role, work in a early startup where you can wear a lot of hats.

[tasogare]

> Nobody has a "thing," it's all branding

I don't agree. In my lab, where everyone is a researcher or research student and most people have tech skill and are building software, it's clear everyone has a "thing". One person was good at analyzing data and produce top-notch visualizations, few guys are good in ML, one person at was in her best game when designing experiment, one is the blockchain guy, some are very good technically, we are two good (or willing to) write documentation for newcomers, etc. Of course, all those people have a broad variety of skills, yet everyone have a special thing, and a smart strategy is to collaborate with them when you need the best on a particular point.

[itsmemattchung]

You'd be surprised how many of us sit in the same boat. I'm constantly asking myself the same question — all the time. Years ago, I wanted to work for Amazon — eventually I got there (I'm here now) and although I do love it, I'm still asking myself: "what's next?" Coming from a networking administration background, building packet processing devices for AWS has been nothing short of a dream.

But again, I'm still asking myself: what's next?

As I write this, I don't think I'll ever have it all figured out. Don't know if I will ever figure it. However, it's part of the journey and along the way, I found a lot of comfort is Susan Fowler's post: https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/5/21/life-without-a-d...

[bhub]

Sounds relatable, thanks. I've given the linked article a cursory glance and I'll definitely read this when I have time to digest it properly.

[sacomo]

Yes. The concept of selling yourself as a prepackaged, easy to comprehend commodity is soul crushing. You are trying to convince other people to exploit your labor. Be flexible and use the term that the person you are selling yourself to wants to hear and don't let it define you. Don't allow yourself to get married to it. Its a label to use for other people's benefit.

[cercatrova]

You should read the book Range by David Epstein. He talks about how generalists can make an impact due to bringing solutions from multiple fields together, often in ways that specialists can't see due to being in the field too long (they lack the "beginner's mind") or just don't have such a breadth of experiences. Here's a HN discussion about the book: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20094242

The bigger thing is the convince employers of this fact, however, which most people won't understand to be true. Instead, therefore, of making just one big resume with all of your experiences, make resumes for disparate fields: full stack resume will only contain full stack experience; same for data science, devops, and so on. This will make you seem like a specialist. Don't lie but don't downplay your experience as well.

[andrewjl]

Look back on your past projects and try to see common patterns where you've either succeeded or enjoyed the experience irrespective of outcome. They don't necessarily need to be technical and they don't need to be specialties. What you're looking for is common traits of situations you've been effective in. Then think about what you'd enjoy doing in the future. Try to chart a path to begin getting experience in that latter area via your existing experience or knowledge.

There may be multiple paths and sometimes finding the best one is a process of trial and error. Your intended destination can even change midway because of what you learn in the process. It also helps to develop a unique perspective on what you're doing, as that can help you bring you value to a project without necessarily being pigeonholed into a specialty.

[codingdave]

I'd stop looking at the tech you use as your "thing", and look more at what you have built. Are there common threads behind the problems you have solved? The industries you have worked in? As your career progresses, those are your niche, not the specific tech you used on a project or two.

[bhub]

This also varies across the board from issue trackers, image libraries, renderfarms, security related tools and so on. But it might help me to sit down and try and consider what commonality exists between the projects I've worked on and have a think about it from there. Thanks

[eyelidlessness]

I think as a counterpoint I’d offer that you don’t need to find a common thread. Breadth is a value in its own right. Demonstrating that you have such a wide base of experience shows that you can adapt to new challenges, and reduces the applicability of any lack of direct prior experience. Finding a common thread may help you refine your own ambitions, and that’s great. But you don’t need to sell a specialist narrative to explain your generalist background. Embrace it! A lot of roles value it over specialization!

All of that said, regardless of what larger orgs may say about preferring candidates who can be effective across the org, I think you’ll find that generalists are more valued in smaller teams/startups/etc. And if that’s your cup of tea, go for it! There’s a ton of business [co]founders looking for someone with a broad skillset.

[aristofun]

What really helped me in similar situation is to find one common thing that drove me to all 100 different jobs and hobbies I’ve changed through my life.

What is a single most valuable thing was there for me?

Not money, fame or generic socially conditioned stuff.

But uniquely mine thing that I found there.

And for me the answer was “the process of creating something new”.

(For my wife it was “fixing things”, she likes to fix people as a psychologist and even fix our dinner :)

As simple as that!

And thanks god I’m smart and flexible enough to create something new either on stage as an actor or in my Mac as a developer.

And I don’t care about all those employers who miss my point.

There’re always like minded people out there.

[airbreather]

Your "thing" is that you can learn new things as required.

It's actually the ultimate thing.

Those other guys with a thing like, say, SQL or LAMP or maybe java etc etc, they can't learn totally new things, or they would.

[quickthrower2]

Well it depends how you name things - you could spend a lifetime in just Java and always be learning things getting deeper. But if they are all under the general banner “Java” it just might not seem that way.

[auspex]

It’s not about what you can do or what your skills actually are... but how you market those skills.

A made up example: I used to do Windows programming, progressed to websites and the back ends to support them, learned SQL and DB optimization, sprinkle some 3D programming in there.

Generalist? Nope. UI expert with 20 years of developing UIs across multiple platforms. Additionally, I spent time learning some of the back end like services and SQL so I can better understand the interface between the UI and the back end developers.

[karmakaze]

There was a post or comment I read recently that mentioned different levels of developers and how/why they're hired. It came down to sometimes devs are hired for what they know or alternatively for what they can learn and that those two generally break down into intermediate and senior devs.

The point isn't that you have a current 'thing'. The point is that you went deep into some of these past things as deep as necessary and should be able to tell the story of how that went. This is one of the parts I always cover when interviewing for senior devs: tell me in your own words of a time you went deep into a problem and came out with a solution. If they can tell a coherent technically detailed story then they had first-hand knowledge of the issues and how the solution was found and applied.

Edit: A different perspective is that no company of considerable size needs a generalist dabbler, they have specialists in relevant areas. A person like that could be versatile as they could be part of any team or project but isn't indispensable. Probably better to work at smaller companies where wearing many hats is a definite plus.

[acesubido]

> Apart from saying you're a "generalist", how do you best sell yourself when you don't have a specialisation or a specific area you are focused on?

"I have a talent and process for evaluating new technologies at a systematic pace. This will allow me to produce the necessary POC that would help you to decide if a piece of new tech is the right fit for your business problem."

Usually that's the job description of an Enterprise Architect or a Solutions Architect. They usually start coding stuff for a POC, or put in initial devops tools/processes, dabble with new tech but not deep enough to be a specialist.

[bhub]

That's a really good description of what I tend to do a lot of the time. I do enjoy playing with and evaluating "things" but rarely get to the point of "expert" with them before the next shiny thing comes in. I had some reservations about posting this question, but given the really helpful and insightful replies I've had, I'm glad I did. Thanks

[davidn20]

It's totally okay not to have a "thing". In other words, not to specialized. Know the pros and cons of it though. Also, as a few other people point it out. Part of it is branding. Peter Thiel touches on it in this great interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHXEjdYwoYE

[kpsychwave]

More of your type is needed in the industry because specialists get outdated You need to market your openness to jump in and solve problems. https://link.medium.com/5ucrrV7nNbb

[pryelluw]

What do you want to do now? Answer that and you will get your next title.

[probinso]

Yes

[tubularhells]

Yes, this is fine. Just list your projects in the application, hiring people will ask you questions about them and you can share stories about the kind of things you did. Don't downplay your experiences. Most people spend their free time on their phone or in the TV. They wish they were like you, but they don't have the drive to do so.

Interested people are interesting. Talk about the things you tinker on with a shine in your eyes.

[bhub]

Not downplaying experiences is probably something I need to practice and get better at. I've interviewed people that have made simple and mundane things sound interesting and amazing. And it's true, there's nothing more infectious than enthusiasm. Thanks for the helpful reply