[lapcat]

> For the most part The large FAANGs just need talented or high potential generalists.

Is this actually true? It seems to me that BigCos have a huge number of very specialized roles, and a corresponding huge need for very specialized talent.

[notacoward]

In my experience outside knowledge can actually be a detriment at a FAANG (FB in my case but retired now). They want people who will learn their tools, their ways, etc. so yes, talented but "unformed" people are their ideal candidates in the great majority of cases. Specialists - such as myself - are brought in only as needed, and often find that trying to apply experience gained elsewhere gets them odd looks at best. The NIH is very strong.

[elijaht]

Not for the vast majority of software engineers, in my experience. Most teams do have some type of specialization (even CRUD apps often require some detailed knowledge of scale, localization/i18n, etc) but that just leads to the expectation that a generalist will need to spend some months onboarding. I do think our hiring process captures a lot of the skill needed to onboard and be successful in this situation

There definitely are a handful of roles that require more specialized backgrounds. I would say that leetcoding for something like that is a disservice to both parties, but I think that is a small fraction of the overall workforce

[lapcat]

The question, I think, is whether the quality of work of a generalist after some months of onboarding is going to be comparable to a specialist with years of domain-specific knowledge and experience.