[tyurok]

Generalist can be a specialization in itself. Imagine someone that can do a bit of front-end, backend, infra, design, would be a specialist in bootstrapping a startup.

Don't get too attached to market/industry defined roles.

Another way to raise rates is to take risks (like deadlines, promises) but every person had their own risk profile.

[JoshTriplett]

> Generalist can be a specialization in itself.

This is absolutely true. Someone who is comfortable chasing down a problem no matter where it leads, and learning what's necessary to handle it if they don't already know, can provide a great deal of value.

Many clients don't need a specialist in X, they need someone who can do X, Y, Z, A, B, C, and oh we didn't realize we needed D and E but we're glad you're up for that too.

[leetrout]

Excluding design this is me and what I enjoy doing.

I named my operation "engine ignite" because I like helping startups start.

I LOVE getting folks leveled up on team process and procedure to support SOC2 and such.

[tyurok]

It's a fairly rare set of skills. People in these positive usually are bad in most of them and it becomes harder to ramp up the team later (mentoring, quality).

[throwaway74829]

Have you gone down this route?

I think the biggest issue deep generalists fall into is that they can be above average in the entire stack, but not exceptional enough to make the cut for a specialized role in any single thing (i.e the vast majority of publicly advertised roles).

Going down “specialized in boot-strapping startups” route is an interesting remedy. I would imagine the only way to find these opportunities is word of mouth.

[tyurok]

I didn't go through, but have seen quite a few. It's indeed a less advertised position since it might be more common in smaller companies (less money/reach) and it might be a founding opportunity (less pay, higher risk), so it goes under the radar compared to very specialized positions.

[Cthulhu_]

Or change the language. Instead of 'generalist', sell yourself as a senior developer, architect, lead developer, etc. Nobody asks "what programming language are you an architect in", because the job is supposed to be much broader than that.

[tyurok]

Yeah, poliglots are difficult to find as well, maybe not as in actual difficulty to be but more of a preference for a subset of techs.