I have been in my current role for about 6 years. While I wasn't hired for it specifically, my average week has my time split between product management, managing a small team to develop those products, ux design, and front-end JS/Python development. It's really a roll where I am all over the place and I do really enjoy it. However, due to the Covid reality in the world right now I am starting to think my time here is up. How can I find another job that isn't specialized to one specific roll as I really do enjoy being a jack of all trades master of none and would like to continue to do that in my next role. I'm also fairly experienced with 16 years of "jack of all trade" type positions.
[+] [-] chadcmulligan|5 years ago|reply
Other alternatives:
- move into management
- found your own company - your jack of all trades skills will then be pressed
- you could also start a side project and put your energy into that, hopefully it will develop into your own company.
- write a book in something (edit: there's the international consultant route for this to I suppose, become a super specialist in one thing and run around talking about it)
- edit: Sales / evangelist etc
[+] [-] badlucklottery|5 years ago|reply
Yup. I'd add public sector work to that list (mostly because it's chronically understaffed and heavily siloed so you have to fill in a lot of roles).
BigCos tend to like specialization because of consistency/efficiency. They might have a skunkworks where you can be a jack of all trades but it's hard to get hired into those roles.
[+] [-] mooreds|5 years ago|reply
I'm not sure how to find them other than to ask in your community.
Ones that I know of (in Colorado, my stomping ground):
* https://www.culturefoundry.com/
* https://crowandraven.com/
* https://devetry.com/
Not sure where you are located, but I'd search for "web development <city>" and see what pops up as a starting point.
I recently moved into devrel for a smaller company and can vouch for the fact that it is a great position if you are a jack of all trades. In the last week or so I have:
* worked on ad landing pages
* written code for an example app
* recorded and edited a video
* filed a couple of bugs against the product
* responded to support requests
* written a blog post
* stood up cloud infrastructure to help me document a new feature
[+] [-] irjustin|5 years ago|reply
It gives you a great taste of startup life w/o a lot of the extreme downsides. Sure, you don't have all the upside, but one step at a time.
Lack of a steady paycheck is pretty crushing for most people.
[+] [-] minhaz23|5 years ago|reply
evangelist? elaborate please?
[+] [-] mynegation|5 years ago|reply
If you do stay in management, get your priorities straight. You do need to be the jack of many trades but these are probably not the trades you are thinking of.
Your first and foremost priority is building the right team. Hiring right people, giving autonomy and sense of purpose to the team members. You want people that are smart but even more importantly you want people that get things done with little or no supervision.
Having said that your second most important priority is to get people unstuck. Be it your gravitas in organization, making the right introduction, or sharing a critical piece of knowledge - check in with your team regularly and actively ask if there are stumbling blocks or blockers. Many people are good in asking for help but there are many for whom it is hard.
I could go on but the point is that the trades you want to master in management are more like: communication, courage to delegate, empathy, accountability, being able to make decisions on imperfect information and deal with whatever consequences come up, etc.
EDIT: if you are leaning more towards individual contributor role, you will probably either find startups more interesting OR - if you looking for seniority - find an organization that has parallel ladders for management and individual contributors. Those companies will have positions that are worded “staff engineer” or “principal engineer” and tend to be on a larger side.
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] quickthrower2|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] etothepii|5 years ago|reply
This is why we're building https://peerwyse.com. We think finding people with good salaries from your LinkedIn network who you think of as your "skill-set peers" will identify opportunities in their industry that traditional job-title based searches can't reveal.
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] wolco2|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] snickell|5 years ago|reply
Like you, in my 20 years doing this type of role (wearing a large variety of different title hats) I've never been HIRED to the role. This feels odd, given playing the role always keeps me in high demand internally to organizations.... so if its something organizations crave internally, why don't they hire for it?
When eng/prod/ux "broke up" and became separate job roles in the post-Google and post-MS world, I found it /very/ frustrating, because I'd rather straddle all of these objectives. Additionally, I find many companies fail around these seams, because its hard to pragmatically find the optimal solution in the broad eng/prod/ux tradeoff space when you have the "deep knowledge trees" spread across many heads, with the limited bandwidth that entails.
When I started taking senior eng management positions, I naturally thought I would change this, and explicitly hire some "jack of all trades" folks. I was surprised by how hard this is to do, harder even (for me) to evaluate than specialist knowledge, was distinguishing pragmatic and effective "jack of all trades" types from, well, bullshitters. This is funny, because the really effective "jack of all trades" I've observed are in many ways the farthest from BSers possible, they're usually so broadly knowledgable partly because they are so voraciously pragmatic that they end up learning a lot of different things. But from the outside, I wasn't personally successful in confidently distinguishing people in an interview context.
The problem is there's a similar appearing archetype to "jack of all trades" the "always reading never doing" person. Conversationally, they can appear similar. And I found (and find myself) that its hard to test jacks-of-all-trades because they often don't keep knowledge at their fingertips, part of their skill is fast learning. But even if they spent serious time using a technology, they still need 4 hrs of work in it to look surface competent again (I think because they're constantly swapping knowledge in and out, vs a deep knowledge person who have practiced the same patterns over and over and over).
So my limited experience as a "jack of all trader" was: 1. Yes, companies seem to get a LOT of benefit from really good people with broad skillsets. 2. But I personally don't know how to select the good ones in hiring. I suspect other people have found good ways, I'd be curious to hear about them :-)
[+] [-] mgkimsal|5 years ago|reply
I've been doing professional software work for 25 years. The last several years I've been working with various JS toolkits (vue/angular, some react) as well as backend stuff (mostly PHP, some Node, some Java, some other stuff), and attendant tooling and whatnot (build systems, testing systems, etc). The last 6 months, I've found myself contracting on different projects swapping between these various stacks, sometimes multiple times per week. I know I look incompetent as a JS developer to some folks who are living in that world 40+ hrs/week for years on end. Couple the various tech stacks with each team's own styles of doing things - which, really, they each seem to think any deviation from 'their' standards is heretical and indicates you're a 'lesser' or 'less experienced' developer - it wears thin after a while..
Trying to 'showcase' that 'jack of all trades' aspect in interviews rarely seems to go well, unless it's not an interview and just a word-of-mouth referral from someone who already 'gets it'.
[+] [-] jrumbut|5 years ago|reply
Also for jack-of-all trades looking to perform well in interviews, my advice is to engage context specific memory. If it's a Python role set up a past Python project on your computer and dig into it a little bit in the minutes before getting on the phone. Your Python mind will come back a little bit.
[+] [-] stevenhubertron|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] iRomain|5 years ago|reply
Same here. I started as a webmaster.
> The problem is there's a similar appearing archetype to "jack of all trades" the "always reading never doing" person.
A good metric I used is to check their Github profile. I believe a "doer" jack of all trades will have to experiment often.
But I agree that they are really really hard to find!
> But even if they spent serious time using a technology, they still need 4 hrs of work in it to look surface competent again
This is true, and even more so when you switch between very different fields. For example, I must admit that it takes a little while to go from a UX design "period" using Figma all day to a DevOps "period" to build AMI's and navigate through AWS (which is a FT job in itself!). And the more fields/subfields you practice, the more likely you are not practicing one for a while; so the time switching becomes a burden and comes with an overwhelming feeling.
On the other hand, Jack of all trades have an incredible advantage in seeing the big picture and visualize the intersection of each field at a very deep level.
For example, a marketer with engineering knowledge will think of growth hacking strategies a specialist marketer would never think of. Or a designer with engineering knowledge can design UI's that can be built efficiently.
[+] [-] caymanjim|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tarsinge|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stevenhubertron|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anonytrary|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] el_benhameen|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] biolurker1|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] filmgirlcw|5 years ago|reply
For the kind of work I do, being a jack of all trades/generalist is actually VERY valuable and I would like to think my team sees that value. But it’s definitely difficult to explain to people who don’t know me who see all my peers who have specific technologies focus areas, and then I’m the chick who knows a lot about a lot of things, has seen a lot, but obviously isn’t going to be as strong as someone who has spent years focusing on one area.
I might be off-base here, but I often think of people who are jack of all trades types as ideal connectors. Or, at least I am. I can connect the right people/teams together and can often identify problems/solutions by asking the right kinds of questions that can help a specialist hone in on something.
That connector/conduit piece is something incredibly beneficial at a large company, when the product engineering teams, the UX teams, the marketing teams, and the sales teams aren’t always in sync (particularly if something is cross product or cross organization). By being familiar with so many different people/roles and being good at identifying where there are opportunities to work together, that’s been a good fit for me, as I get to work on lots of different things and once and spend time with lots of different teams.
That said, I do echo what others have suggested, which is to go for a specialized type of role and then either express your strengths for cross-org work or agility in the interview or try to carve out the role once you’re in the job. A good generalist is typically identified early on and in my experience, we get slotted into that role by others, often without trying.
The more difficult thing, I’ve found, is getting promoted. I’m close to making principal and I would have already been promoted if I was focused on one area. That’s frustrating, because obviously I can do that, but doing that offers less value to the company. But I want to get promoted, so I’m working out how to play that game, while also still being a jack of all trades, even if my title is more focused/specific.
[+] [-] yobert|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tarr11|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Shared404|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stephenboyd|5 years ago|reply
Just Google for "cross-functional senior software engineer" and you'll see a lot of listings that fit what you're looking for, including the high-paying FAANG companies.
[+] [-] tornadron|5 years ago|reply
Or a "Solution Engineer" at an enterprise software/services company could be a fit. This is a role where you may not be working on the core platform, but custom solutions for clients built on top of the platform (hence PM, UX type skills are useful). Sometimes this is in service of sales pitches, other times you are actually implementing the solution.
I have hired for roles like this in enterprise world, but also even for internal platforms at a FANG, i've setup something similar before.
I myself am a sort of jack of all trades for ~20 years now and am a senior engineering manager at a FANG--I've never considered myself to be a particularly strong engineer, but I made up for it in other ways and am technical "enough" to be effective (at least people seem to think so). I've seen others like me be successful (e.g. they are more senior than me now), and some did not even have technical backgrounds, they just "faked it till they made it", but had a good sense of what was important to focus on and not be distracted by technical ratholes.
Like others said, a startup is a good option too--I have been in that type of role in several startups earlier in my career (and have had to hire those types of people before).
good luck!
[+] [-] dropalltables|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] antoniuschan99|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ineedasername|5 years ago|reply
1) Specialize in at least one thing. This will make you an expert in one thing, while still being the person everyone goes to for other things as well. This will help advance to senior developer.
2) If you have a good grasp of the logistics of how pieces of a project fit together & the coordination necessary, another clear path to a more senior role is team lead where you do PM & part-time development. If you want to go higher than that, you're looking at high level project or product management. Actual development work will be minimal, but again with a jack of all trades background you will still provide valuable insight & guidance to those performing development work. And you can always look for extra opportunities to get your hands dirty back in to coding here & there.
[+] [-] snickell|5 years ago|reply
The OP appears to have significant experience already, and it does seem suboptimal to masquerade as a specialist in all job hunts, when that's not the real value you bring to the table.
Its leaning on the third clause of the full text of the quote: "jack of all trades, master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one"... in other words, become a stronger specialist at one thing than most of the specialists in that area. That's great, and some of us can do it, but we're still not as strong as a specialist of our strength. It means you always interview as if you're a couple weight classes below where you actually are.
That's a practical compromise for a person starting out, but like the OP, with enough seniority, and the tremendous value that an experienced generalist provides, it feels bad to lean on that leg in all interview situations!
[+] [-] kirillzubovsky|5 years ago|reply
In my experience, many "experts" in specific programming areas have either gathered sufficient prior knowledge to know the right answer, or more likely have enough prior experience to know where and how to quickly find that answer. That's what makes them the experts.
In much the same way, generalists are quick learners, and your expertise is in knowing how to quickly learn anything so you could find the answers. You are quite literally the expert in becoming the expert.
You might start at 0% knowledge, but you can also get to 80% relatively quickly, at which point you too can function on a near-expert level, at least for a while in a narrow enough scope.
Understanding that, if true, will help you find the jobs that need this ability, even if they don't know it yet.
ps. Let us know how it goes. Would love to learn what you learn ;)
[+] [-] codezero|5 years ago|reply
Also find a really good, experienced manager/leader who can help coach you into that phase. I've found it's very hard for generalists to self-motivate when focusing on a specific and narrow development, and a good coach helps.
If you want to stay a generalist, that's great, go join small startups and bring your experience to them, help them grow and then move on to the next. Early stage startups crave experienced generalists and you can ride that for a long time.
[+] [-] jabroni_salad|5 years ago|reply
I don't have the lofty "Sr" in my title but I have a special designation as the "edge case SME" in the list of experts. I also do big crisis management which is pretty fun. Not a dev, so take it as you will.
[+] [-] mindhash|5 years ago|reply
I also avoid working with really early stage founders as my rates are high.
Write content that will attract founders.
Good luck
[+] [-] banuguler|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pianoben|5 years ago|reply
In my experience, job titles, levels, and even team membership are more "guidelines" than rules, and are often trailing indicators of what and how you're actually doing. I wouldn't worry about finding the perfect opening - just find a team you like and a manager who seems to get it.
[+] [-] lxe|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] oWIJRwlirj|5 years ago|reply
Another option is to find a cookie-cutter role that fits your interests. For me that means "embedded software engineer", where all of my experience is relevant. I'm definitely all-tech and no-management now though.
Yet another option is consulting/contracting/freelancing. You need a good network for that. I haven't done this. Preparing to potentially do it in a few years after I have a larger nest egg.
[+] [-] jacktradesthrow|5 years ago|reply
if you're looking for the rare individual who transcends categorization, you don't do it through job ads or an HR department. it's hard enough to find a person who can do one role well.
so, if you're a jack of all trades, look for a job fulfilling one of your many possible roles, in a place where you will be able to fulfill the others as well. it sounds like that's exactly how you got the job you have.