[trumbitta2]

If I get it right, Ed is concerned about specialization. He misses the days when he was a generalist.

Well, I've been consistently "forced" to generalize my skills for the last 9 years and I have similar concerns.

Now that I'm looking for another company, it seems I'm not specialized enough for like nobody. And while I know for sure my value is – let's say – 9 / 10 where 10 is the likes of Jeff Atwood, John Resig, and so on, it seems prospect employers value me 5 / 10 because I lack specialization.

I am a generalist (from sysadmin all the way up to frontend development and copywriting), but I have my own specialization: HTML, CSS, Web Accessibility. But my specialization seems to be not enough important for most dev teams today.

[Edit: rephrased a bit, for clarity.]

[zmmmmm]

I imagine it is very hard to distinguish your specialization from the mass of people who will claim to know HTML and CSS and pay lip service to the accessibility part as well.

Have you thought about going the independent / consulting route? It seems to me a lot of companies will value having a consultant come and tell them how to fix their accessibility but not be willing to employ someone full time on that basis.