Ask HN: Elevator Pitch for a Polymath?

[kqr]

Dear HN,

So far in my (admittedly fairly short, at 7--8 years experience) professional life, I've always entered employment as a software engineer.

However, I study a lot of things outside of this: leadership, economics, site reliability engineering, writing, queuing theory, product development, extreme value theory, lean, survival analysis, etc. This means when I find the right employer, my job often extends well beyond the programming I was hired to do, into things like:

- statistical analysis of customer health,

- cross-functional KPIs for alignment on current priorities over a diverse set of departments,

- improving development methodologies and workflows,

- adjusting on-call compensation to improve join rates and employee satisfaction, and more.

Over and over I encounter the advice to "come up with and practise the elevator pitch of what you do". I struggle with this. In an ideal environment, I do so many things I have trouble summing it up -- and if I do, it ends up being something too abstract like "I optimise all your systems".

I realise the things I do are basically the job of a CTO, but with my short professional experience it would be ridiculous if I said that's what I wanted to work as -- I know I lack a lot side skills that would be necessary for that job. (And I don't think everyone would appreciate the joke "assistant to the regional CTO".)

I can sell myself as a software engineer and hope that I end up in a crowd that appreciates the other things I do, but I would like to try to find a good summary of what I do to begin with.

How have you approached this?

[neilv]

For the elevator pitch, you might try not to hit everything, but two things that you think might resonate with that audience. For example, for one audience, you're "full-stack software engineer, plus develop data science models for the product domain".

Be careful not to be seen a presumptuous dabbler. For example, if you've studied a field but not done much of it, when you meet someone who has real experience in that, you're impressed and curious to learn from them; don't try to impress them with what you've read. (Maybe briefly take a clinical look at Reddit /r/iamverysmart top posts for some examples of what not to do; but briefly, since I suspect that dwelling in online forums focused on anger/derision/mockery/etc. isn't a great mode to be in.)

With different people, and in different contexts, you'll talk abotu different facets of your experience and interests, using different language. If some of your interests get into MBA-space, you might talk differently with MBAs than you will with engineers. For example, some of your phrasing above would make a lot of technical ICs think you want a manager job.

Outside of elevator pitches, you can cram a lot of examples into a 1-page or 2-page resume, which people will see in non-elevator contexts.

And articulating examples in a resume that you can skim occasionally might help remember examples, so they're on the tip of your tongue as followups when someone responds to your elevator pitch in some direction.

(Warning: I'm not great at business networking, so pinch of salt. For myself, my current professional self-image is something like "straight-shooter creative engineer, with battle scars, who cares", because that's natural and genuine for me, and it works for a lot of roles. Find what's natural for you, and how that matches with what people need, and whether you want to evolve your interaction styles in some direction.)

[GMoromisato]

My suggestion is to invert your strategy. Instead of telling someone what you are good at, start by asking them what their problems and needs are. Then you can easily steer the conversation to how you can help.

Imagine you're trapped in an elevator with the CEO of your company:

CEO: What department do you work in?

You: I'm a software engineer--but don't hold that against me.

CEO: Heh! Truth is I really value software engineers. [Ed: What else is she going to say?]

You: Of course, but I'm sure you've had your frustrations too. Some of us are better with machines than people.

CEO: You know, one thing that's hard is getting reliable estimates. One week I hear that everything is on track and the next week I'm told we're going to miss our deadlines. It's hard to know the reality.

You: Yeah, I get that. I think there some things with our development process that we could improve. If we had more visibility on the customers that sales is targeting, we might be able to anticipate new requirements. If we had known that we were going to sell to [CUSTOMER X], then we would have worked on [FEATURE A] sooner.

CEO: Interesting! Set up a meeting and we can talk about how to implement something like that.

Obviously, this is just a (lame) example. But the point is that no one cares that you're a polymath in the abstract. They only care about how you can solve a problem that they have.

The more you do this, the more people will remember you as "the person who solved problem X". Eventually you might even be known as the "expert in problem X." And if you end up solving lots of different and unrelated problems, eventually you'll get a reputation as a general problem solver, and people will seek you out.

[japanman425]

>she

Just use “they” instead of hamfisting gender equality. Which ironically you do in your first paragraph.

[eyphka]

Small piece of advice on pitch - don't call yourself a polymath. It may come across as deeply arrogant to compare yourself to folks like Leibniz.

[version_five]

I agree with this. What I'd say further is that if you're a generalist, you're not really in a position to pitch yourself as such. You either need to build a relationship with someone who recognizes that you can have some non-traditional role, or you need to spin your experience to someone who's looking for a specific skillset. Telling someone you're as good at some specialist thing as people who are specialists at it comes off as bad and falls as flat as calling yourself a polymath (or any of the other phrases people seem to come up with)

Pitching "I can do anything" doesn't work.

[orange_fritter]

Most disciplines are ~ infinitely deep. An amazing jazz upright bassist once told me that he was only scratching the surface, and to look into 5 other musicians for examples that were blowing his mind at the moment. A flight instructor at one point said "You'll think you're competent at flying but a pilot can sense your ignorance a mile away with a couple sentences." I don't know what constitutes polymath but I can barely be a mono-math and I am happy with what I have.

[Nomentatus]

Yet polymath doesn't even mean "good", it means Jack-of-all-trades (master of none.) If you want to say "aspirationally a polymath," that might go down easier. Still, you need to be in a rare corporate body that understands the value of your broad, shallow pond of knowlege, not having the average institution hire you and then not value what you bring.

[pdpi]

Where appropriate, I use "geek of all trades" specifically to avoid this.

[bloqs]

Referring to yourself as a polymath comes off as arrogant and shows lack of appropriate social awareness. Not something you want in any scenario. In terms of pitching, you need decent subject headings for each area. (Look at how non technical people present their experience on linkedin).

Talk about what you have done, in what capacity. This is valuable and should be presented, so "technical lead for transformation of HR systems" or perhaps list "Business transformation manager & soft eng" whatever and let the questions work the detail out, presenting each as a project of sorts. As it stands, doing lots of odd jobs is not always helpful to your branding as a person, as it tends to work against the "elevator pitch" quick summary.

[tptacek]

These aren't "basically the job of a CTO". Thing (1) is part of the portfolio of a product manager; things (2), (3), and (4) are bread-and-butter engineering management work. Maybe you want to be an EM, maybe you want to be a PM.

In my experience, there are two kinds of "CTO" titles in the industry: the kind given to a principal cofounder who doesn't want to manage people, and the kind given to a principal of any sort when they have their git access taken away and are asked take calls with big customer prospects all day. If you want to be the former kind, start a company; the latter, reevaluate.

[starwind]

Yeah I like this angle. I think his elevator pitch is "I'm a software developer who likes doing project management work, and I know statistics"

[theiz]

I do not agree with the CTO comparison looking at your examples. It seems you are a very broad tactical specialist. For CTO roles you however also need to be able to set a strategy, I do not see that. Frankly if you would be able to do that, you would have made a 5 year plan for your career and did not raise this question. Sure, you can solve all problems thrown at you. But can you make a plan that prevent these problems even exist? So: where do you want to be 5 years from now? What position or role do you want to be then? How do you get there? Answer these questions, and I think you will have a general idea of your current elevator pitch.

[bmcquade]

You want to connect the dots between the unique skills/strengths you bring to the job and company objectives. Reading what you wrote I think you can frame this as "I own problems end to end to ensure a successful outcome. I do whatever needs to be done, even when (especially when?) this involves responsibilities beyond writing code." Then you give examples of how you have done this, connecting the dots to how the things you did ensured a successful outcome. This is a trait all companies want to hire for so it should help you to show how you stand out relative to other candidates. As others noted avoid words like "like cto", "polymath" etc when describing yourself. These are too abstract and will not help you to show the company why they should hire you.

[fullstackchris]

For me, the real question here is why haven't you started your own company? You claim you can be a CTO... so go be a CTO. You then claim at the same time you "lack a lot side skills that would be necessary for that job". So go learn those skills THEN go be CTO.

It's like you're trying to say you want to have your cake and eat it too, but you don't have the cake yet.

Yeah, sounds harsh, but I'm just repeating what you are saying.

[fullstackchris]

Also replying to my own comment shamelessly, but 7-8 years software experience is NOT to short too be a CTO

[nvln]

+1. If you don't care about the business aspects, you can team up with someone who likes that. 7-8 years of experience is perfect as you are young enough to risk a startup, experienced enough to take it through.

[conductr]

I’m a CFO and you basically described my job when I was a financial analyst. Not all financial analysts can do the technical stuff but those that can are still just called financial analysts. Now that I employ a team of analysts I make sure some are technical and some are not (the non technical tend to have different skillsets).

It’s a generalist role. You solve problems/generate insights with an analytical or technical approach. I’d call you an analyst from what I’ve read. Nothing particularly sounded like any CTO I’ve worked with. Maybe CTO of a 20 person company, but realize that’s largely title inflation.

[therealcamino]

My advice would be to stick to concrete, specific descriptions of what you've done, and if you're giving elevator pitches to keep in mind what it is you're pitching for, and stay relevant to that. To be completely honest, your description above comes across as very smug and impressed with yourself, which can be off-putting.

[Nomentatus]

In other words, abandon hope of finding the rare employer who'll get what you can bring to the table right from the jump. Just get a pigeon-hole job like everyone else. But he's not that - he could have specialized like the rest of the herd, and didn't, even early on. If he wants to be valued for what is he, and he does, he needs an unusually astute employer. They exist - they're hard to find, and sometimes hard to get to, and prove oneself to, but they exist.

[paulcole]

> I study a lot of things outside of this: leadership, economics, site reliability engineering, writing, queuing theory, product development, extreme value theory, lean, survival analysis, etc

The extent to which this is true should affect your answer quite a bit. Look at yourself honestly and decide whether you study these things or if you’ve just read a book on each of them (or maybe just a New Yorker article). Have you received intense critique and feedback from a true expert in those fields?

I’d lean towards never mentioning your study unless it’s actual study and not just self-learning of whatever catches your fancy. Dilettante isn’t often used as a compliment.

The elevator pitch you give should be tailored to the job you want. Do you want to be CTO? If so, learn what that job is and where you fall short and where you don’t. Maybe something like, “I’m an experienced full-stack engineer. In addition to X,Y,and Z, I’ve often found myself improving systems like A,B,C - that you have at your company. I’m looking for a CTO role where I can D,E,F and work on building skills in G,H,I.”

[robmerki]

I've had many of the same struggles. After a while, I just embraced it. My friend and I came up with the term "Wildcard Person." I enjoy using the label myself.

This might resonate with you: https://wildcardpeople.com/what-is-a-wildcard-person

[brudgers]

1. "the things I do are basically the job of a CTO"

If your job title isn't CTO, leave this behind. Unless the elevator is stuck between floors and we are waiting on an emergency crew to rope down sandwiches through the escape hatch, it's not going to work in an elevator. Too many syllables versus "I am a CT0."

2. Tell people who you are. You are more than what you do. If you are a leader, say "I am a leader." Lean in. Tell people what you can stand behind.

Good luck.

[actinium226]

I just want to say, I've noticed the same issue with myself lately. My personal solution has been to go get a PhD in applied math but that's me. I'll still probably have the same problem after a I get a PhD but I'll burn that bridge when I get there.

If I were staying in software, then I think my strategy would be to identify what 'boxes' there are and try to fit my experience into those 'boxes' for the different jobs I apply to. It gets really grueling having to make multiple resumes, and some of them can get a little thin, but maybe take this as a first approach. As an example of 'boxes' I mean

- Web developer - Embedded firmware developer - Devops engineer - Data scientist/data engineer

You know your experience best so modify as appropriate, but also maybe try to lean into the box where you "fit" the best. I know it might be a little depressing to try to reduce yourself to "web developer" box, but I see the goal as trying to stick to a career path/industry with the goal of building a network and building off opportunities. Not sure if that makes sense, good luck.

[singpolyma3]

Sounds like you're just good at your job vs not. At a BigCo you leverage that into the staff dev / principle dev track. If you don't want to BigCo then find a cofounder.

[achrono]

First rule of thumb imo that usually isn't mentioned for elevator pitches but still applies is to tailor the message to the audience.

Second would be try to find appropriate metaphors -- how about "I'm a meta full stack developer" and if that piques interest go into your multidisciplinary talents there.

Third, plain old confidence.

[jandrewrogers]

I think you are misunderstanding what a CTO does.

CTOs primarily solve people problems, not technical problems. The focus is much more on organizational, market, and customer issues in a strategic context. Being technical provides necessary context to do that job competently but the skills required are not primarily technical per se. What you are describing is a technical generalist and Swiss Army knife. Outside of a garage-stage startup, a CTO should not be spending much time deep in the weeds of technical execution.

I think you'll find that you are better off presenting yourself as a very well-rounded specialist, which is highly desirable from an employment perspective, than as a generalist.

[Nomentatus]

I think you've misunderstood the question. He doesn't want a job, he wants a job where he'll get use his special sauce.

All managers spend a ton of time on people problems, and onboarding/training. But CTOs do or can do more; their technical judgements are a key part of the job. They don't have to get into the weeds, but they have to know the weeds and know who on their team knows most about which weeds.

Elon gets ridiculously far into the weeds, frequently; but admittedly that's rare. Jobs relied more on intuition and key tech people, but knew more about the weeds than he let on. I know, most employers wouldn't hire Elon or Jobs or let them do their thing. But again this guy ain't looking for just any perch.

I'm reminded of Sandy Munro roasting/comparing all the executives he worked under at Ford with Musk. It's absolutely true that this guy would be miserable with a standard CTO-type job at the old Ford. He doesn't want our help getting that job.

[jll29]

  - statistical analysis of customer health,
  - cross-functional KPIs for alignment on current priorities over a diverse set of departments,
  - improving development methodologies and workflows,
  - adjusting on-call compensation to improve join rates and employee satisfaction, and more.

"Technical and business problem solver" or "Applied Senior Scientist", perhaps? Be careful that your pitch is not read as "Jack of all trades and master of none".

(CTOs, at least in larger companies, work at a higher level e.g. installing governance structures, setting strategy etc. - which you do not mention)

[poobear22]

Step back and ask yourself (objectively) how well you work with the team. I had a co-worker (really smart, but a bit of a narcissist and perhaps very mild asperger syndrome) that was a little too aggressive in telling everyone how smart he was. It did not go well, and in the end, people did not take the person seriously. It was sad and self-reenforcing, the more he told them how smart he was, the less they trusted him. Then we were at the point that people were afraid to give him anything as they thought his direction would be deliver something unexpected. (My observation)

I think a bit of a mystery is nice. You are a SW engineer, tell them you are a geek and will find yourself involved in the details of XXXX. If they probe, deliver, but keep a little mystery. When you surprise them, you will build a solid and well earned reputation.

[c-fe]

Try to feed everything you just mentioned into ChatGPT and ask it for an elevator pitch or linkedin summary. I am aware that HN is recently a bit fed up with ChatGPT posts but this works surprisingly well and will at least give you a good starting ground.