> Generalists (juniors) often innovate better than specialists
I don’t think all generalists are juniors nor are all juniors generalists.
Why lump them together here?
We need more experienced generalists in our industry.
I don’t think all generalists are juniors nor are all juniors generalists.
Why lump them together here?
We need more experienced generalists in our industry.
Specialism vs generalism is very much a mindset of a person and not strictly dependent on their past experience. I suspect it has much more instead to do with their ability and willingness to build a mental abstraction behind the concrete implementation they have experience with.
To refine the conceit: A specialist will see only the tool, but a generalist will see the way the tool solves a specific problem and get an idea for how other tools can solve it.
I'm being a little hard on specialists here; a good specialist may often have a far more thorough understanding of how to wield their chosen tool and come up with a better solution using it... Assuming they aren't trying to hammer in a screw, of course.
A senior dev is a specialist in your company, a junior often has pretty broad skills that apply across companies.
So while they may also have the generic skills that could get them hired into an unspecialized role, they're likely not applying for those.
Not all generalists choose to, or even can specialize. They don't cease to exist once they've accrued enough experience. Nor does having a lot of experience mean you're specialized in any one thing.
You can be senior, have loads of experience, and still be a generalist.
At a certain point, you would be capable of fulfilling a specialist role in those tools, whether you choose to apply for one or not.
When people say specialists, what they mean is SMEs hired to do one specific, specialized role. You can be an SME in something and be hired into a generalist role, or a generalist hired into a specialist role. Whether you are a specialist or a generalist is down to your job role, not your skills. An SME in e.g. reverse engineering who quit IT and now runs a llama farm/ cafe (the dream) is not an RE specialist, they're a llama farmer.
Totally agree on the huge impact, et al. And for available jobs without a job posting, this remains as you say. But when a hiring manager goes to HR/recruiting and a job posting is generated, it is never for a generalist.
So, an experienced generalist has to skip over specific postings, simply look at who is hiring at all (or growing headcount as evidenced by other data points), and find a way in to pitch themselves.