Ask HN: Word for Jack of All Trades | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Word for Jack of All Trades

4 pointsbeefield13 comments

Some time ago I remember seeing here at HN an excellent word for a type of (startup) employee that:

- likes to solve - and is good at solving - all kinds of problems.

- once the problem is solved, is not jealous about it, but is happy pass the solution for someone else to polish and maintain

- dislikes routine work

And so forth. Unfortunately I can't recall it anymore. There was even a career site mentioned that was dedicated for/named after these kind of folks. Closest my research brings up is CWTFO ( https://klinger.io/posts/joining-hypergrowth-startups-%F0%9F%98%AC ) But it is not the word I am looking for - and neither is jack of all trades.

Anyone happen to remember what I am looking for?

Is that really not everyone?

Who is an engineer that excitedly looks forward to that final 10% of polish and maintenance? (I do it because I look forward to shipping things, and ofc pay)

What engineer enjoys routine work? Oh, lovely, I'll go and clean up comments in the code today... for a tenth day again.

The only distinction that seems to make any sense seems to be that they are "good at solving" all kinds of problems.

I'd call those "good engineers".

Edit: I seriously hope you are not looking for "10x engineer"!

No, the context was that especially in startups there are lots of problems that nobody in the company knows how to solve beforehand. There is a certain personality that you can throw these problems at and they are happy to have them on their table.

We used to call those (us? :) "hackers".

Polymath

Probably not what you're looking for, but I'll throw in Renaissance Man as another synonym.

That's an engineer.

Software developer.

code ninja? rockstar developer?

Generalist

The word I am looking for was a bit "catchier"

Shortstop

Übermensch: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%9Cbermensch

variety specialist

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