[celdon25]

All other things being equal, I’d rather hire someone who knows four languages that we don’t use, over someone who knows only one language that happens to be the one we use. Selecting for adaptability and breadth is a better predictor of success IMO. Among other benefits.

[q-big]

> I’d rather hire someone who knows four languages that we don’t use, over someone who knows only one language that happens to be the one we use.

The more programming languages one knows well, the more opinionated one typically becomes because one has seen a lot of different approaches to programming. The strong opinions that the respective programmer has are not necessarily identical to the company's desired approach to programming.

[cardanome]

Yeah, but at a certain point of that journey people start getting less opinionated and more pragmatic again. At least that is how it worked for me.

Though yeah I only list languages that are relevant to the specific job when I apply. Sometimes one exotic conversation starter though that hasn't yet worked out.

Kind of ironic that I have too hide some of my programming knowledge because a broad understanding of many languages could allow me to add some really great value to the right company. Hiring prefers narrow-minded specialist though so I will play that part.

[celdon25]

Agreed though personally for me I didn’t see great results until close to 8 languages used professionally. Once I knew about 5 of them I had a much easier time landing jobs despite being bad at whiteboarding.

edit: what I mean to really say here is that pragmatism, like any learning, doesn't just happen automatically. You can have a lot of languages under your belt but still only believe in one. You won't necessarily have it with more languages, but you're unlikely to have it if you know just one.