I am a designineer. The problem is that it doesn't make you an expert of all skills. Jack of all trades, master of none.
While I took AP CS in high school, I can't rattle off the to O-notation of most algorithms. While I took plenty of art and design classes over the years, I'm no Jony Ives.
But, its not about what I can't do in my mind, but what I can do. I learn most things very quickly. I'm decent in Ruby and can get stuff done. I can get around Photoshop decently. I'm good at understanding what the customer wants and the product needs. I know how the pieces glue together. I don't mind meeting with VCs, talking to customers or interviewing people.
Yet contrary to popular belief, I don't find people bashing down my door. I don't have the sexiest Github account. The startups I've worked for aren't huge. When I'm asked what I do I reply, "Coding, marketing, product and design". Then they ask if I'm a Java or Ruby coder with 4-7 years of solid experience and a CS background.
Maybe the difference is I don't see myself as being a "full stack" guy, but a "full company" guy. I understand what everyone needs to be doing, and I have (often good) ideas of how a problem might be approached better.
I personally see myself as a huge asset to any company. I often end up doing the productivity of 2-3 people with more traditional backgrounds, but its a really hard sell honestly. I could try selling myself as a manager I suppose, but I'm not sure.
I suspect the scarcity of your skillset is the main contributor to your relative scarcity of opportunities. At a previous company I helped found, we realized that we were trying to find people who were pretty good designers, front-end developers, and really good on the phone with clients for support stuff. We didn't have the margins to split these into different roles, and that was the insight that allowed me to realize that our revenue model was fundamentally broken. It's not that these people don't exist, it's that you can't design your business around reliably finding them. So maybe you're left with a handful of startups who are able to find a place for you because they recognize your value and adapt, not because they had planned on finding you in the first place.
I never thought of my self in this fashion but I guess I fit into the designineer category only because I took some graphic design classes in college while I was studying CS. I thought it would help me create video games but I landed in web development which I enjoy a lot of think of myself as lucky.
At my last company they jokingly called me the "Utility Man" taken from the football term. We had a lead designer but I worked with him a lot on stuff. We had developers that I helped. I worked with our Architect to design systems. I lead several projects so I did the PM thing. I even spent 2 years in security and information security audits (yuck!). Even the audit crap I excelled at.
I think some people can just pick up stuff fast. I don't think I'm a genius as this post suggests these types are but I do think I can pick up stuff really fast. I would imagine that most "designineers" could probably pick up in another area fast as well.
I'm in the same boat. Until five months ago I'd only worked for smaller web design/dev/marketing shops because the opportunity to "wear different hats" presented itself more regularly. My current position at a larger company is "Front End Engineer" and I only arrived at that after a significant rebranding of myself.
I think your problem is a marketing problem. I wouldn't be impressed with somebody who said "coding, marketing, product and design" -- I'd wonder why they didn't have an answer with more flair or confidence or one that said how they'd help ME.
How about this: "I'm your trench man. When it's on the line and you need a good layout for a new feature you HAVE to roll out? Me. When you have a bug and all your other developers aren't available? I can drop Photoshop and fix it. And while I do all that, I'm figuring out how to help make your app better… and get more happy customers… which helps you get more customers, period. I can help your developers and your designers make sweet, sweet product love… because I have one foot on each side of the ravine, and can bridge it with my communication skills. One stop shopping, baby."
See what I said above to others about confidence & delivery.
When you only define yourself in terms of line item features "code, design" you invite comparison based on features alone. Hence the followup questions about years of experience. You're making yourself the crappy subnotebook with the bulleted list, and the MacBook Airs are beating the pants off you. :)
I think the problem is not that one person can't have both of these skills, but that it is hard to play both roles on the same project unless you have a lot of discipline.
The engineering mindset and the UX design mindset optimize for different things. Even if you are excellent at both, it helps to have someone else forcing you to get the UX right when you're doing the engineering work, and to make the engineering possible when doing the design work.
The people who can do both at the same time don't differ in having both skills -- lots of people have them -- but in having the discipline to optimize for both in alternation.
but that it is hard to play both roles on the same project unless you have a lot of discipline.
For me it's less of a discipline issue and more of a time issue.
Both the backend and the frontend take a lot of quality time to do them right. It's simply not effective to have a single person context-switch between them, even when said person is very good at both. I.e. this is one of the situations where two people can indeed produce a given result nearly twice as fast.
However, I also agree that on top of that discipline plays a role, too.
While wearing the engineer-hat you have to constantly force yourself to stick with the brain-damaged abstractions that comprise todays "state-of-the-art" and not give in to the urge of fixing them bottom-up.
I.e. when both front- and backend are in your hands then the temptation to make the frontend truly model-driven can quickly become overwhelming (auto-generate those stupid forms and validations! why mirror when we could just rpc!). Sadly more often than not this results in a huge time-sink, as you embark in an uphill battle against a tool-chain that's strongly optimized for the exact opposite.
I find the reason it's hard to do both on the same project is that the engineer by definition knows the internals of the system. It's hard to un-know that and see things afresh from the user perspective. Thus one tends to create UIs that are intuitive to someone who already has a mental model of how the system works, but seem convoluted and arbitrary to everybody else.
"Organizations which design systems ... are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations"
When the organization structure of a project is 'there's just one guy who does it all', the software architecture will tend towards 'the big ball of code' pattern.
However, if the team on a project has people who are engineers, and people who are designers, then a designineer might be a useful product manager to help balance conflicting engineering and UX requirements.
In a startup, looking for a first hire engineer, you probably want someone who will grow into that role - but it's a mistake to have your first system built by them and them alone, because you'll almost inevitably wind up with a big ball of code.
In general, all software should be built by at least two people collaborating, to force some division of responsibility, which will (via Conway's Law) force some structure.
(as you say, the best developers are disciplined and capable of structuring systems in the absence of a forcing structure. This is maybe because they divide work logically into units, and therefore find themselves collaborating with their past- and future-self, giving the structural effect of team work. But apply pressure to even a great developer and that discipline can break down.)
I was an artist most life and learned engineering when I was 20. It was extremely difficult but I did well and graduated at the top of my class. I can still draw and paint, but creating beautiful web interfaces is very hard for me. Like you're saying, it's not for lack of ability. It's a curse of knowledge.
When you design a UI as an engineer, you're thinking long term. Like make the whole thing white so that new features can be added in easily. Also, the logo is going to need to look good on white anyway for email footers, Facebook apps, etc..., so just make header background white. Then you may have integrations with third-party widgets. All will support white best.
Also, things that 'look' good often are not usable. Like text below 11px, and low contrast shades of text may not be visible to older folks. I see this stuff all the time on sites with 'awesome' design.
Also, images for backgrounds, corners, buttons etc... slow the page load down and don't allow for easy extensibility or iterating. So if I can't do it with CSS, I don't do it.
Page load time, non-buginess, and iteration leading to smooth functionality are the most important parts of UX, IMO. Making the site look like a piece of art does none of these, but I think art gets confused with UX too often. Do you visit this site for the beautiful design? How about Google or Facebook?
If you spend the time to do beautiful design and functionality like Apple, you can create something where the beauty does not detract from usability. But, that takes somewhere on the order of 10x the resources since they're doing 10 prototype designs, refining 3 of them, and only keeping one. If you're trying to create a market, then that makes sense. However, if you're trying to create the most useful product in an existing market, then you're wasting time IMO.
A lot of people can do passable jobs on both roles, but I've never met someone who was awesome on the backend that was also a great UX designer. Likewise, the best designers can whip up a new UI in an afternoon, but it might take them a couple weeks to get it coded.
Agreed. It's hard to switch gears from being head deep in back end code to thinking about and approaching a problem in terms of design. Maybe if you can spend one day coding and the next designing...
Unless I'm working for myself I find I rarely have this freedom. This is why I left my last startup. If I'm trying to do both there are too many things that I'm accountable for on a daily basis to the boss, who in my experience doesn't want me to stop coding to "waste a day" designing.
And in the end I feel like I just end up doing a half-assed job on both. More power to those who can do the switcheroo, be excellent in both, and keep the writer-of-paychecks happy!
Engineering and UX can go hand in hand. What clashes is User-Centred UX and (sometimes) business objectives.
When engineers and UX people work together, it is bliss as both provide a piece of the puzzle, can't see why one person can't do both.
I agree, there are a lot of people that can both very well and to be honest most contractors have to be able to if they want to get work.
I don't think that the skill set required is actually that different, but your right in saying discipline is required in order to excel in both.
Then I think the key point is those that do possess both skills and the discipline/drive to excel at both are usually either doing very well doing their own thing and aren't looking for work.
There are some people that have both but it is extremely rare as the author points out. Being a hack or OK in design and development is not the same, many people can do that. I think he is pointing out the very small circle of extremely gifted individuals who can legitimately do both on a professional level.
As in any profession there will always be some extraordinary individuals that are heads and toes above the rest.
You're probably also not making two salaries' worth for doing two roles worth of work. But I know, you guys don't go into startups for the money, right.
I recently applied at a YC funded startup. Their job description had the most random combination of front-end/back-end technologies that exactly matched my recent focuses, and said absolutely nothing about design. I considered myself extremely qualified.
I received a call the following day and was told I was a top candidate. As the interviews progressed with each founder (3 of them), I started to get the impression that they also wanted a designer. I was super careful about managing their expectations and let them know I wouldn't count on my design skills for anything more than "not ugly".
I didn't get an offer.
This is the second time in my very remote, limited experience I've speculated a startup hiring stereotype that has later been echoed in the community. I've convinced myself that both indicate the lack of experience that startup founders have in hiring. Yet another reason I suspect founders can't find talent. After all, what kind of established, motivated and passionate, developer/designer would want to bet their livelihood on a startup that doesn't pay well, isn't clear about its expectations, and shows signs of inexperience?
Sounds like you dodged a bullet. The founders probably weren't going to give their first employee the kind of equity they were going to give themselves, despite the fact that their first employee would have to be more qualified than they were.
Every freelancer in my area is, by this definition, a "Desingineer." I'm in the midwest, so there's almost no other way to get work other than go full stack. Obviously, some are better at the back end and some are better designers, but they have to do it all.
Honestly, this reinforces the issue that startups do a poor job of recruiting outside of their 20 mile radius. For example, its early in the office, and I still see 5 people who have pushed high level applications, good front ends, and the occasional mobile app.
have built a company in the middle of the country as well, and know this freelance type. Typically they are "okay" at design and "okay" at development. They work well for local small businesses but not for startups looking for top caliber design.
I agree with this, however, what constitutes a "designer?"
Defining an engineer is easy: can build systems that optimize for function. Can build a UI that the user can understand to the point that the user can gain value.
How do you quantify design? How do you quantify a designer? If we had metrics, then it would be easier to understand which freelancers actually are "Desingineers."
I have about 14 years into my career as a web guy who can code (front to back), design killer UI and create, execute and grow business strategy.
What that being set! "being" a generalist is not for everyone.
There are some things to note:
1. Keeping up with all three is a LOT of work. Understanding the latest javascript libraries, deployment tech, UI tools and successful business models take a ton of time. I roughly spend 15-30 hrs a week trying new things our, designing or running spreadsheets not to mention the meetups and whatnot.
2. Every startup is looking for this person because they can enable so many parts of the success equation in one, self-contained shot. They add more value per square inch at critical phases of business growth that is a considerable asset. As a startup grows, this is personality turns into an optimal product lead, who can drive major decisions and participate in meaningful discussions with teams, investors and press.
3. Large corporations are not tuned to need or understand your services, unless you are accomplished in mid- to senior-level management positions.
4. You can visualize and eval business ideas quickly, then be able to communicate them to specialists with ease. I can't tell you the number of times being able to verbalized the need for a linked list or onHover whatever has made communcation easier with people who I bring to help me execute. This makes you a better implementer who is respected by counterparts and team members. Business folk quickly grasp CLV and burn margins when deciding to invest or advise.
4. You don't necessarily become an expert in everything. In fact, it's near impossible. I've had to focus of two or three major activities and fine tune my skills. This could mean I will be specializing in the future.
5. You don't get rest. The world is moving quickly, technology even faster. There are millions of able and hungry people willing to execute on their great ideas every single day. That means I have to keep moving or lose my flow. I can probably point to 7 or so ideas that were launched in the time I was evaluating the opportunity with 3 that have gone onto real growth.
I'm 21 years into my career myself, so the web is younger than my carrer. At this point, I do full stack development as well.
And... I think you are taking on more than you need to for the discussion at hand.
If you are an excellent JS programmer, you don't need to keep up on the latest libraries. You can code what you need yourself. Sure, maybe you do something from scratch that could have been done with a newer library, but the 10 hours you lose there is more than made up by not having to do those 15 hours a week keeping up.
Likewise on your other tech points. Constantly churning your toolkit doesn't speed you up. It slows you down. There is a balance to be found where you keep up "enough", but still focus the majority of your time on delivering work.
I choose to spend a day or so each month trying to keep up, then roll with what I know for a while.
Likewise with some of your other activities. Meetups and business models? They may help you be a consultant, but that is adding yet a 4th role to the topic at hand.
Many of your other points also apply more to a consultant than a heads-down designer/coder.
In general, it sounds like you are trying to be an even rarer breed. More power to ya, but it may be overkill for most people.
The design's not bad and avoids most developer designed pitfalls, but it's not great either. HTML wise you've resorted to nested divs, there's errant elements floating in the wrong place and there's also a bunch of commented out code in each html page, which imho is always a massive red flag for me programmer wise. You shouldn't have to comment out code if you're using a VCS.
Obviously this is from 2 years ago, do you have any examples that better show off your skills now?
I'm not trying to pick on you here, it's more that I am honestly interested to see some of your work.
I do all of those, and I am definitely not a genius. Nor all that rare. Most of the projects I've worked on in the last 5 years have had several devs who could go end-to-end, and the ones that weren't were working towards that goal.
It's really not rocket surgery, it's just a matter of applying yourself over time and every few months acquire new skills in an essential area. CSS, JS, Ruby, TCP/IP, HTTP/REST, UI/UX, SQL, design patterns, on and on. Set em up and knock em down. Be a generalist, but be a very good one.
It's not that hard to accomplish over time and it keeps you engaged longer. Heck, it's just more fun. I'm an 'older' coder and taking that approach I think has kept me from getting bored, kept me sharp and also kept me from feeling like all these young'uns is passin me by. Hey! Get off my lawn...
I've been working hard at being this guy. HTML+CSS+JS(coffee!)+Ruby, years of professional experience doing UX and website design on whiteboards and Photoshop and Illustrator, successfully launching brand-new projects.
I also know a few guys I've worked with that are very strong in the same areas. It's more pleasurable to work with a team where every member will do well in all areas, even if we have a core area that we would prefer to be an expert in. I don't believe those people are mythical or hard to find.
The myth is that startups want those people, but don't have enough money to afford them. They want desingineers that are cheap. I'm personally tired of seeing "stock options" in startups that don't have a product yet.
I'm a desingineer - ux, visual design, solid on front-end and okay on backend. Just wanted to point out its not all a bed of roses.
For the last month I've been interviewing at some really amazing startups. What I've found is that I have no problem getting interviews at some of the best startups (>50% response rate) because well everyone wants someone who can code and design . The problem is that I have to fight an uphill battle to prove that I'm not just a designer that writes HTML/CSS. There is ALWAYS the question of "so...how good are your frontend skills?" with an intonation of doubt. No one actually bothers to ask or determine about the level of your design skills. Another question is "which one do you prefer?". I really hate that question because it shows you don't understand what a product focused engineer is.
Positive response really depends on the stage of a startup. I'm finding that teams between 5-20 are looking more for specialists in design and engineering. Any smaller or bigger and a desingineer becomes a very valuable role to fill. So feeling I'm missing out on opportunities at some great startups cause of this phenomenon. Would e interested to know if anyone else has experienced this?
It's definitely causing me to think about my career path. Do I focus on one or the other? I know I am not great at both and that is because I have to spread myself thin in both areas and dont know the best tools and practices as well as I should.
Being a desingineer makes it really easy to start your own thing be it a startup or side project - I've done it a few times myself. However, sometimes you need financial stability, or are waiting for a significant idea, or just want to work with other really smart people on an idea with traction to gain more experience.
So we aren't unicorns and it's definitely not a double-rainbow life.
I'm coming a little late to this discussion, but I do think that as much as startups want "desingineers", the hiring process makes it very unlikely that they will ever get one.
I remember reading Scott Adams's advice on how to get into the top 1% (well, reallu the top .0..1%). One way is to be incredibly good at one thing - like Roger Federer. The other way is to keep combining interesting and related things until you're there - ie., someone in the top 10% at coding, design, sales, biology, and construction.
Here's the thing - recently, we've been discussing the willingness of companies trying to hire to accept "false negatives" because the impact of a bad hire is so detrimental to a team. But I think a lot of "false negatives" may be coders who do pretty well in the interview but not quite well enough to get past the filter. The interview process almost never gets at their other skills. So the company fails to hire someone with exceptional domain experience and good design skills because he or she struggled a bit finding cycles in a linked list.
There are solutions for people like this. One is to be a founder - get an idea, start coding and designing, create an initial app, and see what kind of traction you can get. The other is very similar - you'll managed to get hired somewhere eventually, and you can start proposing projects. Eventually, you'll get to run with one, and you can be entrepreneurial about it (well less upside but at least you'll have a salary).
It's much easier to do this on your own or once you're established with a company. It's tough to get this across in an interview process.
When I worked as an industrial design, we had a similar person on staff that sat at the intersection of design and engineering - we call this person a design engineer.
About six years ago, I decided to become a "desingineer", by accident. Here's how it went down:
After getting a BS and M.Eng in Computer Science, everyone was pleased as punched to let me code for them. But I wanted to code and design interfaces as well. What a strange idea - a programmer also making the interfaces.
Well, it turned out no one would take me seriously unless I had designed interfaces in a professional environment before. I needed someone that would take a chance on me, to actually let me design their UIs while hiding me away in their software team. (I managed to find one job that would, and for that I'm forever grateful.)
Once I picked up some experience designing UIs, the top companies wouldn't would take me seriously until I had some formal design training and credentials. So, I went back for a degree in Interaction Design.
Once I finished my degree, the top companies wouldn't take me seriously until I shipped some code that had my own designs in it. So I did that for a while, in a few hybrid dev/designer positions.
Once I shipped my code, the top companies wouldn't take me seriously until I had shipped a design of my own creation that was also my own (so, owning the UI, UX, code and business strategy). So I got back into entrepreneurship (something I'd largely given up with my pure CS focus), and started creating and shipping my own designs.
Now, as an entrepreneur, interaction designer and computer scientist, the top companies won't take me seriously until I start shipping designs of my own creation that are also visually stunning. Working on it. :)
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Only now, six years later, do I realize that no one will ever take you seriously unless they can define you.
Programmers can be understood, and slotted. They have real, respected career paths. Designers can be understood, and slotted. They have real, respected career paths as well. Even Interaction Designers are slowly becoming understood.
Being a desingineer, while bringing me incredible amounts of joy, also feels absolutely terrible - because people are constantly coming along with ideas of what you can or should bring to an organization. The limits of the position are such unknowns, in fact, that sometimes people feel desingineers should be everything to everyone.
Sometimes that comes out of with a sense of greed - after all, it's on the desingineer to prove they shouldn't have to do all of those things, right? And, in fact, they feel entitled to everything. Early-stage startups are particularly bad about this, I've noticed - their "first designer hire" posts often forget that everyone starts somewhere. (Sorry, but it's true.)
But other times people simply misunderstand how long it takes to become good at each of the individual skill sets involved. And other times companies are still sorting out what skill sets their companies actually need in the same person.
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Is there anything we can do, as a community, to bring some clarity and definition to "desingineering" - so kids coming out of school don't have to go through what I have gone through? It's obvious that this is a position that companies need, but it's not one that will be treated with respect until its own practioners - a fair number of whom seem to be on HN - actively come together to help define it.
I think in general, being a generalist in any field puts a ceiling on your career path after a while. And like you said the ceiling is not so much about the generalist being mediocre at many things, its more about others getting confused about how you would be best moved up the career track. But the problem with the concept of a career track is that you are on a track defined by other people. I'd say the only way out is go your own way as you have - career tracks all eventually end somewhere. As a generalist you have a much broader perspective on how to create your own track and a much better vision as to what direction best suits you. I think probably the best way we can encourage up and coming tech generalists is to encourage them to get frustrated with the status quo and to become entrepreneurs. As a result hopefully the next generation of companies will have a deeper appreciation of the competitive advantage of multi-disciplined people.
I started messing around in photoshop making paintings of websites and dreaming up ideas in high school. In college, I convinced a programmer to help me build one of my ideas, and he agreed on the condition that I had to code the front end HTML and CSS. So I learned how to do that and surprisingly enjoyed it.
Then I realized I could quit my job making websites for people, so I got even better at building and deploying static sites.
I started going to meetups and built more side projects and sites with friends and started to get more comfortable with Rails, JavaScript, Git, etc.
After college, I went to work for Olark (YC 09) and realized that I could be far more useful if I knew how to program. So I've been working hard to get better at the various languages and frameworks that comprise our stack. And I'm well on my way to becoming a desingineer.
you should try splitting it into (i) a designer who does HTML, CSS (ii) a programmer and (iii) perhaps even a separate Javascript coder.
This is how the company I work for right now does it and it is EXTREMELY inefficient. I've been advocating them to go back to one person to do html/css/js/php.
I can see the above work for large orgs. But with a 3-4 person tech team, super specialization has not worked at all
What's inefficient about it? Usually this doesn't work if your process sucks. The way I've seen it work well is:
Designer starts on the project a week ahead of programmer. Gathers requirements (with the programmer tagging along). Does paper sketches which get a general a-ok from everyone.
Does html prototype, ideally already in rails.
Hands off to developer, developer wires up. Over time they iterate together on the same codebase.
My partner does: UI/UX design, HTML and JavaScript and a dash of backend. I do: backend, architecture, algorithms, sysadmin work and HTML + JavaScript when necessary.
It works really well. We also continuously try to expand to the others territory.
I suppose it's a bit of a lost battle in the web space, but I find it weird when the jobs are broken into "programmer/engineer", who does implementation, and "designer", who does UI/frontend stuff. In other areas of engineering, a lot of things other than the final aesthetics, or even just the UI, are called "design"; when you "design" a power plant, that's not purely implementation, but is heavily tied to the engineering. Surely any nontrivial webapp also has that kind of design as well, something more like product design? And it seems like you do want engineers who are also able to do that.
I might be considered a larval Designineer. I started off as a visual designer, then learned HTML and CSS, then Javascript, then out of necessity began maintaining an old ASP Classic codebase. As soon as I started to understand the code I was reading, things got easier. Then I built a small data-backed web app and I was totally hooked. In the last two years, I've learned to build nontrivial web apps from the ground up. SQL, MVC, Backbone, UI, design. I'm pretty proficient at each level of the stack, but only insofar as it's related to the web. Eg. I know C#, but I wouldn't have the first clue about how to write a native Windows application. So I end up feeling like my knowledge is the proverbial mile wide and inch deep.
I'm looking for jobs right now, and it's been an exercise in frustration. The coding jobs require CS degrees, 5 years of experience, tech interviews with big-O notation and data structures (trying to teach myself basic CS theory, but need a job now). The UI and design jobs require a smidge of front-end knowledge, but are mostly mocking and wireframing. I want to be able to employ all of my tools, but I feel like the hiring market makes me pick between being a front-end or a back-end guy, and I don't currently have enough specialization at either to get a reasonably good job.
How can I find companies that could use someone like me, when their job descriptions are specialized? Any thoughts or advice?
Anyone on here have any insights on HOW to get there?
IME, you need certain attitudes towards life to get good at both.
You need to be a visionary AND an engineer. Usually people are one or the other and prefer it because they suck less at it. Hence, they eventually get great at it. But this means the other suffers. To be in the designer+engineer category, you first need to figure out what you are good at (essentially what you spend a large chunk of your time on - dreaming or coding) and then what you are weak at.
Then practice doing the weak thing for a couple of years.
Pretty soon, you are a designeer.
Problem is, in the startup world, I still can't figure out WHY you should be both when you can hire people to complement your weakness. Steve Jobs was obviously only a visionary and he, through practice, became great at it. Dennis Ritchie, an engineer.
Unless, of course, startup is not your endgame. Unless your goal is self-improvement powered by a zesty thirst for knowledge. In my limited knowledge, though Learnado Da Vinci fell into the designeer category, he was still very much an idea person (visionary) than an engineer - mainly because he procrastinated like crazy with his projects (for years, at times). This shows that he preferred conceptualizing the project and loved cultivating the vision rather than actually implement it.
Thoughts? Please give me some feedback, this stuff is important.
I would guess this has become a trend based on the following...
1) Entrance of lower quality, inexperienced founders who want an end product and only know about the buzzwords that supposedly go into building that product. They don't have an expert grasp on the development process so they naively think the process is to collect a group of people with all skills.
2) The advances in work process efficiencies make it easier to do different jobs in tech. Consequently, this makes it much more possible for 1 person to wear many hats somewhat more effectively. 10 to 20 years ago, these sort of job descriptions would be 100% insane because it took so much more out of the different disciplines to put software together. It would be like a hospital posting a job opening for a doctor who can also drive the ambulance.
On the 2nd point it makes me wonder if eventually at some point in the future the startup team along with the need for venture capital will be obsolete. If we follow the current trajectory, I could see building tech startups being more and more the domain of one to a couple people with slim to none capital requirements.
I think it's possible for most of the web-mobile projects today that aren't too ambitious in their scale, with one caveat: servers cost a ton on money.
The advantages of the "desingineer" is that you cut out a lot of red tape and inefficiencies in the early stages. You can implement things much much faster if you know both front/back and how they come together. IMO, this is crucially important in the MVP/early stages of a startup where you don't have a lot of resources and need to move quickly.
The downside to this (and what I'm slowly figuring out), is that there are limits. It involves a lot of context switching. Someone else mentioned it but it's true... you only have so many hours a day and it's insanely hard trying to become proficient at design, ui/ux, and programming.
What ends up happening is that you "feel" like you're mediocre at everything, and when your startup is growing that feeling SUCKS. I would much rather have a small team where we each specialize (with some overlap of course) in what we can be excellent at.
[+] [-] tibbon|14 years ago|reply
While I took AP CS in high school, I can't rattle off the to O-notation of most algorithms. While I took plenty of art and design classes over the years, I'm no Jony Ives.
But, its not about what I can't do in my mind, but what I can do. I learn most things very quickly. I'm decent in Ruby and can get stuff done. I can get around Photoshop decently. I'm good at understanding what the customer wants and the product needs. I know how the pieces glue together. I don't mind meeting with VCs, talking to customers or interviewing people.
Yet contrary to popular belief, I don't find people bashing down my door. I don't have the sexiest Github account. The startups I've worked for aren't huge. When I'm asked what I do I reply, "Coding, marketing, product and design". Then they ask if I'm a Java or Ruby coder with 4-7 years of solid experience and a CS background.
Maybe the difference is I don't see myself as being a "full stack" guy, but a "full company" guy. I understand what everyone needs to be doing, and I have (often good) ideas of how a problem might be approached better.
I personally see myself as a huge asset to any company. I often end up doing the productivity of 2-3 people with more traditional backgrounds, but its a really hard sell honestly. I could try selling myself as a manager I suppose, but I'm not sure.
[+] [-] danielmason|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jkeel|14 years ago|reply
At my last company they jokingly called me the "Utility Man" taken from the football term. We had a lead designer but I worked with him a lot on stuff. We had developers that I helped. I worked with our Architect to design systems. I lead several projects so I did the PM thing. I even spent 2 years in security and information security audits (yuck!). Even the audit crap I excelled at.
I think some people can just pick up stuff fast. I don't think I'm a genius as this post suggests these types are but I do think I can pick up stuff really fast. I would imagine that most "designineers" could probably pick up in another area fast as well.
[+] [-] fistofjohnwayne|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ahoyhere|14 years ago|reply
How about this: "I'm your trench man. When it's on the line and you need a good layout for a new feature you HAVE to roll out? Me. When you have a bug and all your other developers aren't available? I can drop Photoshop and fix it. And while I do all that, I'm figuring out how to help make your app better… and get more happy customers… which helps you get more customers, period. I can help your developers and your designers make sweet, sweet product love… because I have one foot on each side of the ravine, and can bridge it with my communication skills. One stop shopping, baby."
See what I said above to others about confidence & delivery.
When you only define yourself in terms of line item features "code, design" you invite comparison based on features alone. Hence the followup questions about years of experience. You're making yourself the crappy subnotebook with the bulleted list, and the MacBook Airs are beating the pants off you. :)
[+] [-] asolove|14 years ago|reply
The engineering mindset and the UX design mindset optimize for different things. Even if you are excellent at both, it helps to have someone else forcing you to get the UX right when you're doing the engineering work, and to make the engineering possible when doing the design work.
The people who can do both at the same time don't differ in having both skills -- lots of people have them -- but in having the discipline to optimize for both in alternation.
[+] [-] moe|14 years ago|reply
For me it's less of a discipline issue and more of a time issue.
Both the backend and the frontend take a lot of quality time to do them right. It's simply not effective to have a single person context-switch between them, even when said person is very good at both. I.e. this is one of the situations where two people can indeed produce a given result nearly twice as fast.
However, I also agree that on top of that discipline plays a role, too.
While wearing the engineer-hat you have to constantly force yourself to stick with the brain-damaged abstractions that comprise todays "state-of-the-art" and not give in to the urge of fixing them bottom-up.
I.e. when both front- and backend are in your hands then the temptation to make the frontend truly model-driven can quickly become overwhelming (auto-generate those stupid forms and validations! why mirror when we could just rpc!). Sadly more often than not this results in a huge time-sink, as you embark in an uphill battle against a tool-chain that's strongly optimized for the exact opposite.
[+] [-] gruseom|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jameshart|14 years ago|reply
"Organizations which design systems ... are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations"
When the organization structure of a project is 'there's just one guy who does it all', the software architecture will tend towards 'the big ball of code' pattern.
However, if the team on a project has people who are engineers, and people who are designers, then a designineer might be a useful product manager to help balance conflicting engineering and UX requirements.
In a startup, looking for a first hire engineer, you probably want someone who will grow into that role - but it's a mistake to have your first system built by them and them alone, because you'll almost inevitably wind up with a big ball of code.
In general, all software should be built by at least two people collaborating, to force some division of responsibility, which will (via Conway's Law) force some structure.
(as you say, the best developers are disciplined and capable of structuring systems in the absence of a forcing structure. This is maybe because they divide work logically into units, and therefore find themselves collaborating with their past- and future-self, giving the structural effect of team work. But apply pressure to even a great developer and that discipline can break down.)
[+] [-] cr4zy|14 years ago|reply
When you design a UI as an engineer, you're thinking long term. Like make the whole thing white so that new features can be added in easily. Also, the logo is going to need to look good on white anyway for email footers, Facebook apps, etc..., so just make header background white. Then you may have integrations with third-party widgets. All will support white best.
Also, things that 'look' good often are not usable. Like text below 11px, and low contrast shades of text may not be visible to older folks. I see this stuff all the time on sites with 'awesome' design.
Also, images for backgrounds, corners, buttons etc... slow the page load down and don't allow for easy extensibility or iterating. So if I can't do it with CSS, I don't do it.
Page load time, non-buginess, and iteration leading to smooth functionality are the most important parts of UX, IMO. Making the site look like a piece of art does none of these, but I think art gets confused with UX too often. Do you visit this site for the beautiful design? How about Google or Facebook?
If you spend the time to do beautiful design and functionality like Apple, you can create something where the beauty does not detract from usability. But, that takes somewhere on the order of 10x the resources since they're doing 10 prototype designs, refining 3 of them, and only keeping one. If you're trying to create a market, then that makes sense. However, if you're trying to create the most useful product in an existing market, then you're wasting time IMO.
[+] [-] nimblegorilla|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kenamarit|14 years ago|reply
Unless I'm working for myself I find I rarely have this freedom. This is why I left my last startup. If I'm trying to do both there are too many things that I'm accountable for on a daily basis to the boss, who in my experience doesn't want me to stop coding to "waste a day" designing.
And in the end I feel like I just end up doing a half-assed job on both. More power to those who can do the switcheroo, be excellent in both, and keep the writer-of-paychecks happy!
[+] [-] agilebyte|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jwblackwell|14 years ago|reply
I don't think that the skill set required is actually that different, but your right in saying discipline is required in order to excel in both.
Then I think the key point is those that do possess both skills and the discipline/drive to excel at both are usually either doing very well doing their own thing and aren't looking for work.
[+] [-] alexwolfe|14 years ago|reply
As in any profession there will always be some extraordinary individuals that are heads and toes above the rest.
[+] [-] sjsk|14 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] funkah|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] evlapix|14 years ago|reply
I received a call the following day and was told I was a top candidate. As the interviews progressed with each founder (3 of them), I started to get the impression that they also wanted a designer. I was super careful about managing their expectations and let them know I wouldn't count on my design skills for anything more than "not ugly".
I didn't get an offer.
This is the second time in my very remote, limited experience I've speculated a startup hiring stereotype that has later been echoed in the community. I've convinced myself that both indicate the lack of experience that startup founders have in hiring. Yet another reason I suspect founders can't find talent. After all, what kind of established, motivated and passionate, developer/designer would want to bet their livelihood on a startup that doesn't pay well, isn't clear about its expectations, and shows signs of inexperience?
[+] [-] ootachi|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aspir|14 years ago|reply
Honestly, this reinforces the issue that startups do a poor job of recruiting outside of their 20 mile radius. For example, its early in the office, and I still see 5 people who have pushed high level applications, good front ends, and the occasional mobile app.
[+] [-] sandieman|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] systemizer|14 years ago|reply
Defining an engineer is easy: can build systems that optimize for function. Can build a UI that the user can understand to the point that the user can gain value.
How do you quantify design? How do you quantify a designer? If we had metrics, then it would be easier to understand which freelancers actually are "Desingineers."
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] bigohms|14 years ago|reply
What that being set! "being" a generalist is not for everyone.
There are some things to note:
1. Keeping up with all three is a LOT of work. Understanding the latest javascript libraries, deployment tech, UI tools and successful business models take a ton of time. I roughly spend 15-30 hrs a week trying new things our, designing or running spreadsheets not to mention the meetups and whatnot.
2. Every startup is looking for this person because they can enable so many parts of the success equation in one, self-contained shot. They add more value per square inch at critical phases of business growth that is a considerable asset. As a startup grows, this is personality turns into an optimal product lead, who can drive major decisions and participate in meaningful discussions with teams, investors and press.
3. Large corporations are not tuned to need or understand your services, unless you are accomplished in mid- to senior-level management positions.
4. You can visualize and eval business ideas quickly, then be able to communicate them to specialists with ease. I can't tell you the number of times being able to verbalized the need for a linked list or onHover whatever has made communcation easier with people who I bring to help me execute. This makes you a better implementer who is respected by counterparts and team members. Business folk quickly grasp CLV and burn margins when deciding to invest or advise.
4. You don't necessarily become an expert in everything. In fact, it's near impossible. I've had to focus of two or three major activities and fine tune my skills. This could mean I will be specializing in the future.
5. You don't get rest. The world is moving quickly, technology even faster. There are millions of able and hungry people willing to execute on their great ideas every single day. That means I have to keep moving or lose my flow. I can probably point to 7 or so ideas that were launched in the time I was evaluating the opportunity with 3 that have gone onto real growth.
[+] [-] synnik|14 years ago|reply
And... I think you are taking on more than you need to for the discussion at hand.
If you are an excellent JS programmer, you don't need to keep up on the latest libraries. You can code what you need yourself. Sure, maybe you do something from scratch that could have been done with a newer library, but the 10 hours you lose there is more than made up by not having to do those 15 hours a week keeping up.
Likewise on your other tech points. Constantly churning your toolkit doesn't speed you up. It slows you down. There is a balance to be found where you keep up "enough", but still focus the majority of your time on delivering work.
I choose to spend a day or so each month trying to keep up, then roll with what I know for a while.
Likewise with some of your other activities. Meetups and business models? They may help you be a consultant, but that is adding yet a 4th role to the topic at hand.
Many of your other points also apply more to a consultant than a heads-down designer/coder.
In general, it sounds like you are trying to be an even rarer breed. More power to ya, but it may be overkill for most people.
[+] [-] mattmanser|14 years ago|reply
As the only link I can find to your work that you've shared so far is this http://cookbuk.com/ (from http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2289991)
The design's not bad and avoids most developer designed pitfalls, but it's not great either. HTML wise you've resorted to nested divs, there's errant elements floating in the wrong place and there's also a bunch of commented out code in each html page, which imho is always a massive red flag for me programmer wise. You shouldn't have to comment out code if you're using a VCS.
Obviously this is from 2 years ago, do you have any examples that better show off your skills now?
I'm not trying to pick on you here, it's more that I am honestly interested to see some of your work.
[+] [-] geekfactor|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] davesims|14 years ago|reply
It's really not rocket surgery, it's just a matter of applying yourself over time and every few months acquire new skills in an essential area. CSS, JS, Ruby, TCP/IP, HTTP/REST, UI/UX, SQL, design patterns, on and on. Set em up and knock em down. Be a generalist, but be a very good one.
It's not that hard to accomplish over time and it keeps you engaged longer. Heck, it's just more fun. I'm an 'older' coder and taking that approach I think has kept me from getting bored, kept me sharp and also kept me from feeling like all these young'uns is passin me by. Hey! Get off my lawn...
[+] [-] pg|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] balsam|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pgisstilladink|14 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] creativeembassy|14 years ago|reply
I also know a few guys I've worked with that are very strong in the same areas. It's more pleasurable to work with a team where every member will do well in all areas, even if we have a core area that we would prefer to be an expert in. I don't believe those people are mythical or hard to find.
The myth is that startups want those people, but don't have enough money to afford them. They want desingineers that are cheap. I'm personally tired of seeing "stock options" in startups that don't have a product yet.
[+] [-] thinker|14 years ago|reply
For the last month I've been interviewing at some really amazing startups. What I've found is that I have no problem getting interviews at some of the best startups (>50% response rate) because well everyone wants someone who can code and design . The problem is that I have to fight an uphill battle to prove that I'm not just a designer that writes HTML/CSS. There is ALWAYS the question of "so...how good are your frontend skills?" with an intonation of doubt. No one actually bothers to ask or determine about the level of your design skills. Another question is "which one do you prefer?". I really hate that question because it shows you don't understand what a product focused engineer is.
Positive response really depends on the stage of a startup. I'm finding that teams between 5-20 are looking more for specialists in design and engineering. Any smaller or bigger and a desingineer becomes a very valuable role to fill. So feeling I'm missing out on opportunities at some great startups cause of this phenomenon. Would e interested to know if anyone else has experienced this?
It's definitely causing me to think about my career path. Do I focus on one or the other? I know I am not great at both and that is because I have to spread myself thin in both areas and dont know the best tools and practices as well as I should.
Being a desingineer makes it really easy to start your own thing be it a startup or side project - I've done it a few times myself. However, sometimes you need financial stability, or are waiting for a significant idea, or just want to work with other really smart people on an idea with traction to gain more experience.
So we aren't unicorns and it's definitely not a double-rainbow life.
[+] [-] geebee|14 years ago|reply
I remember reading Scott Adams's advice on how to get into the top 1% (well, reallu the top .0..1%). One way is to be incredibly good at one thing - like Roger Federer. The other way is to keep combining interesting and related things until you're there - ie., someone in the top 10% at coding, design, sales, biology, and construction.
Here's the thing - recently, we've been discussing the willingness of companies trying to hire to accept "false negatives" because the impact of a bad hire is so detrimental to a team. But I think a lot of "false negatives" may be coders who do pretty well in the interview but not quite well enough to get past the filter. The interview process almost never gets at their other skills. So the company fails to hire someone with exceptional domain experience and good design skills because he or she struggled a bit finding cycles in a linked list.
There are solutions for people like this. One is to be a founder - get an idea, start coding and designing, create an initial app, and see what kind of traction you can get. The other is very similar - you'll managed to get hired somewhere eventually, and you can start proposing projects. Eventually, you'll get to run with one, and you can be entrepreneurial about it (well less upside but at least you'll have a salary).
It's much easier to do this on your own or once you're established with a company. It's tough to get this across in an interview process.
[+] [-] brianchesky|14 years ago|reply
We have this role at Airbnb.
[+] [-] sbisker|14 years ago|reply
After getting a BS and M.Eng in Computer Science, everyone was pleased as punched to let me code for them. But I wanted to code and design interfaces as well. What a strange idea - a programmer also making the interfaces.
Well, it turned out no one would take me seriously unless I had designed interfaces in a professional environment before. I needed someone that would take a chance on me, to actually let me design their UIs while hiding me away in their software team. (I managed to find one job that would, and for that I'm forever grateful.)
Once I picked up some experience designing UIs, the top companies wouldn't would take me seriously until I had some formal design training and credentials. So, I went back for a degree in Interaction Design.
Once I finished my degree, the top companies wouldn't take me seriously until I shipped some code that had my own designs in it. So I did that for a while, in a few hybrid dev/designer positions.
Once I shipped my code, the top companies wouldn't take me seriously until I had shipped a design of my own creation that was also my own (so, owning the UI, UX, code and business strategy). So I got back into entrepreneurship (something I'd largely given up with my pure CS focus), and started creating and shipping my own designs.
Now, as an entrepreneur, interaction designer and computer scientist, the top companies won't take me seriously until I start shipping designs of my own creation that are also visually stunning. Working on it. :)
--------------------
Only now, six years later, do I realize that no one will ever take you seriously unless they can define you. Programmers can be understood, and slotted. They have real, respected career paths. Designers can be understood, and slotted. They have real, respected career paths as well. Even Interaction Designers are slowly becoming understood.
Being a desingineer, while bringing me incredible amounts of joy, also feels absolutely terrible - because people are constantly coming along with ideas of what you can or should bring to an organization. The limits of the position are such unknowns, in fact, that sometimes people feel desingineers should be everything to everyone.
Sometimes that comes out of with a sense of greed - after all, it's on the desingineer to prove they shouldn't have to do all of those things, right? And, in fact, they feel entitled to everything. Early-stage startups are particularly bad about this, I've noticed - their "first designer hire" posts often forget that everyone starts somewhere. (Sorry, but it's true.)
But other times people simply misunderstand how long it takes to become good at each of the individual skill sets involved. And other times companies are still sorting out what skill sets their companies actually need in the same person.
-------------------
Is there anything we can do, as a community, to bring some clarity and definition to "desingineering" - so kids coming out of school don't have to go through what I have gone through? It's obvious that this is a position that companies need, but it's not one that will be treated with respect until its own practioners - a fair number of whom seem to be on HN - actively come together to help define it.
[+] [-] moocow01|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nbashaw|14 years ago|reply
I started messing around in photoshop making paintings of websites and dreaming up ideas in high school. In college, I convinced a programmer to help me build one of my ideas, and he agreed on the condition that I had to code the front end HTML and CSS. So I learned how to do that and surprisingly enjoyed it.
Then I realized I could quit my job making websites for people, so I got even better at building and deploying static sites.
I started going to meetups and built more side projects and sites with friends and started to get more comfortable with Rails, JavaScript, Git, etc.
After college, I went to work for Olark (YC 09) and realized that I could be far more useful if I knew how to program. So I've been working hard to get better at the various languages and frameworks that comprise our stack. And I'm well on my way to becoming a desingineer.
[+] [-] badclient|14 years ago|reply
This is how the company I work for right now does it and it is EXTREMELY inefficient. I've been advocating them to go back to one person to do html/css/js/php.
I can see the above work for large orgs. But with a 3-4 person tech team, super specialization has not worked at all
[+] [-] scottschulthess|14 years ago|reply
Designer starts on the project a week ahead of programmer. Gathers requirements (with the programmer tagging along). Does paper sketches which get a general a-ok from everyone.
Does html prototype, ideally already in rails.
Hands off to developer, developer wires up. Over time they iterate together on the same codebase.
[+] [-] DuncanIdaho|14 years ago|reply
It works really well. We also continuously try to expand to the others territory.
[+] [-] dools|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _delirium|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ck2|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] danielmason|14 years ago|reply
I'm looking for jobs right now, and it's been an exercise in frustration. The coding jobs require CS degrees, 5 years of experience, tech interviews with big-O notation and data structures (trying to teach myself basic CS theory, but need a job now). The UI and design jobs require a smidge of front-end knowledge, but are mostly mocking and wireframing. I want to be able to employ all of my tools, but I feel like the hiring market makes me pick between being a front-end or a back-end guy, and I don't currently have enough specialization at either to get a reasonably good job.
How can I find companies that could use someone like me, when their job descriptions are specialized? Any thoughts or advice?
[+] [-] namank|14 years ago|reply
IME, you need certain attitudes towards life to get good at both.
You need to be a visionary AND an engineer. Usually people are one or the other and prefer it because they suck less at it. Hence, they eventually get great at it. But this means the other suffers. To be in the designer+engineer category, you first need to figure out what you are good at (essentially what you spend a large chunk of your time on - dreaming or coding) and then what you are weak at.
Then practice doing the weak thing for a couple of years.
Pretty soon, you are a designeer.
Problem is, in the startup world, I still can't figure out WHY you should be both when you can hire people to complement your weakness. Steve Jobs was obviously only a visionary and he, through practice, became great at it. Dennis Ritchie, an engineer.
Unless, of course, startup is not your endgame. Unless your goal is self-improvement powered by a zesty thirst for knowledge. In my limited knowledge, though Learnado Da Vinci fell into the designeer category, he was still very much an idea person (visionary) than an engineer - mainly because he procrastinated like crazy with his projects (for years, at times). This shows that he preferred conceptualizing the project and loved cultivating the vision rather than actually implement it.
Thoughts? Please give me some feedback, this stuff is important.
[+] [-] moocow01|14 years ago|reply
1) Entrance of lower quality, inexperienced founders who want an end product and only know about the buzzwords that supposedly go into building that product. They don't have an expert grasp on the development process so they naively think the process is to collect a group of people with all skills.
2) The advances in work process efficiencies make it easier to do different jobs in tech. Consequently, this makes it much more possible for 1 person to wear many hats somewhat more effectively. 10 to 20 years ago, these sort of job descriptions would be 100% insane because it took so much more out of the different disciplines to put software together. It would be like a hospital posting a job opening for a doctor who can also drive the ambulance.
On the 2nd point it makes me wonder if eventually at some point in the future the startup team along with the need for venture capital will be obsolete. If we follow the current trajectory, I could see building tech startups being more and more the domain of one to a couple people with slim to none capital requirements.
[+] [-] radagaisus|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ookblah|14 years ago|reply
The advantages of the "desingineer" is that you cut out a lot of red tape and inefficiencies in the early stages. You can implement things much much faster if you know both front/back and how they come together. IMO, this is crucially important in the MVP/early stages of a startup where you don't have a lot of resources and need to move quickly.
The downside to this (and what I'm slowly figuring out), is that there are limits. It involves a lot of context switching. Someone else mentioned it but it's true... you only have so many hours a day and it's insanely hard trying to become proficient at design, ui/ux, and programming.
What ends up happening is that you "feel" like you're mediocre at everything, and when your startup is growing that feeling SUCKS. I would much rather have a small team where we each specialize (with some overlap of course) in what we can be excellent at.