Devs regularly complain that our skills are not valued enough and that people think what we do is easy.

But, we don't really help the cause when we run around casually claiming to be "full stack" and not turning down work that clearly isn't in our area of competence.

We act more like Victorian amateur scientists.

Every seen a "full stack" doctor when you go to hospital? "Brain to feet---I can do it all."

OK, we have general practitioners, but they are really the BAs of the medical world. When it comes to getting into the weed, everyone specializes.

Full stack lawyer? "Hey, you did an excellent job of dealing with my house purchase. I've just been accused of murder. Can you represent me?"

While we continue to say that we can provide a high quality "full stack" experience I think we are signaling that this stuff *is* easy.

Went to an interview for the position ‘PHP Web Developer’. Interviewer scans through my CV for 2mins and then starts the interview.
Interviewer: Do you know Java?
Me: I know Java but I don’t have any professional experience
Interviewer: Do you know Hadoop?
Me: No. I’ve never worked on it
Interviewer: Our company works on Hadoop hence you should be able to work on that after joining.
Me: I thought this is a PHP web dev position.
Interviewer: Of course. But you will have work on various other things too!
Me: I don’t think I want to become jack of all trades. Thanks for the opportunity!
I got up and left the interview...

Random post on linkedin...

"Jack of all trades, master of none"

Being a generalist does not make you a master of none.

You are at a position to apply your diverse yet relevant experiences into a singular objective. This makes you strategic and holistic.

A jack of all trades, a master of integration.

Had a PM in my programming class say "I want to understand what my team is going through, so I want to learn to code and the like, really to be a jack of all trades to better myself and my team" 👏 I respect that.

I didn't..
A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one.

I pick up whatever is required by my projects, but I do prefer backend & scripting to graphic fuckery.. // pixel left, pixel up...blah, not for me..

Long rant, sorry.

I’m pretty upset, or let’s say: I want to kick asses and chew gum but I’m all out of gum(The duke TM).

Yesterday we had a discussion in the office about salary basically.

Context: The company has about 150 employees and earns a lot of money. I’m the lead dev for about 1.5 years since I joined.

So I talked to our CEO/HR about a raise since I was hired as a normal fullstack dev(title is lead dev now) but have to:
train my junior(PHP), frontend guy(react), our QA(Automation with cypress atm), our junior devop(gitlab, jenkins, docker) and even assist marketing with GTM and adword campaigns.

I’m a jack of all trades basically since I was a freelancer for big brands for a long time.
I’m fine with helping/training, I like it a lot but I still have to watch everything and be fast with my own stuff. If anything goes wrong, people call me.

That will change since I train them all(They will all be independent soon) but still, doing everything for the same pay feels wrong.

Bottom line: CEO told me it’s cool that they can use all my skills but I won’t get a raise.

The worst/strangest was: My coworkers heard about that(as always in an office) and were like: Everybody should get paid equally because we’re all a team. Uhm, ok?

I just contacted the head hunter which got me that job. I guess I’ll just see what the market has to offer.

It should never be about money but this was confusing. People telling me we should all be equal who are on their mobiles 3h a day and feel underpaid. Check yourself, really.

People who think their pure presence is enough.. Germany -.-

My biggest insecurity?

That I'm fascinated by a lot of domains and rather than mastering one I'm just intermediate in all of them, making me a jack of all trades but a master of none.

I live in zurich switzerland one of the most expensive places to live. And i work as a jack of all trades graphic ux/ui designer/copy writer/marketeer in IT security.
I earn about $3800 a month, but every salery calculator says I should earn above $7000. With a median salery of $9300. But this seems so much money and I suffer from low self esteem. So what should I do? (Quitting is not an option because I like it there)

Should a developer really have to be a jack of all trades? I write code, but at work I feel like I am always getting pulled into sysadmin debacles. I am not a sysadmin or an ops person. I am a developer, not a systems guy.

If you want me to be a systems guy, then train me to be one. You hired me to write code, not to troubleshoot shitty IBM Application Servers.

I recently joined a new company where work is quite different than my previous company.
Every day at work is challenging for me. There is good exposure to learn technology in depth. But time constraint to deliver module like under 3 days does not let me learn my work, also I am not satisfy with the quality of my code that I provide, it more looks like a patch. In my previous company I was favorite developer of my team but here I feel like a fresher who doesn't know from where to start.

Even I feel like my presence does not make any impact in office as I am just like an extra player of the team. I am slow at my work because I learn then I code due to which my manager does not consider me for any new work. I feel like left out in my team.

Once I overheard one of my colleague he called me helpless and were making fun of me. With every passing day I am losing my confidence.

I have no github reputation. It's like I am jack of all trades but master of none.

Every day is like big fight day in office.
I know our only way to survive in this industry is to keep on learning but in smart way. I am not sure what's that smart way?

Any advice would be helpful.

So apparently there was a prod issue all day today because some server app couldn't start up.

The error was caused by missing Params...

And seems everyone that got asked to look at it are pretty clueless.

I looked at the text msgs now cuz my phone wouldn't stop vibrating from notifs (yes it got that bad) and I'm thinking, of all the ppl you guys could've asked, no one reached out to me... Who well knows exactly it works, and how to fix it.

But the issue with the team is everyone works on everything but most people have no idea how the apps actually work...

Jack of all trades, master of none...

Anyways, sitting on the sidelines watching the chaos ain't too bad either....

!rant
tl;dr; quit my job last monday. going to grow my side hustle into full time freelancing.
I am so exited.

---
Story time:
I am working full time as a jack of all trades and also have a side business where I coach people on an ERP for doors/fenestration and also write custom software in c#.
I was able to manage both over ~4 years, with customer amount slowly growing (only doing B2B).

Last month I opened an account at a freelancer website just for the lulz and damn after a short amount of time the orders exploded. I had to shut it down again because I cannot manage the amount of work. But did manage to win a fair amount of customers that will keep me busy for the next year or two.

Spoke to my employer and told them about the situation (they know about my side business and it's all mentioned in the contracts). Said that I would need half the amount of hours with my business to reach the same amount of money and that working as an employee makes no sense for me in terms of money. I would however like to work 1 to 2 days in a week for them because working there is fun, even when its financially uninteresting.

they took one week to prepare a position and then invited me to a meeting. "we offer you 32 hours a week. if you want more, you have to make a descision. As a self employed person you have risk and we as an employer do not want to carry that risk for you and we do not want to finance your self employment" (etc.)

Thought I am in the wrong movie. I took that into the weekend and thought a lot about what has been said.

And last monday I invited to a follow up and told them

"sorry, I think I was not clear enough. Working for you is of no interest in terms of money. You do not finance me, it's the other way around. Sadly we do not come to an agreement, as 8 hours less does not fit the need. You said I need to make a descision. I do not want to do this but I'm quitting".

They responded with "Oh that is sad to hear. Is there anything that we can make so you do not leave?"

"Either pay me the same I would make as a self employed or follow my conditions"
Did not get a response on that.

I now have three months to prepare myself for self employment.
Currently working 40h + growing side business + getting the whole german bureaucracy shit together.

Tough time but hell this feels so damn good.

Just wanted to share this :)

is normal to be asked to do ui/ux design if you are a full stack developer?

Just had a great interview :)

The guy was really cool, asked actually relevant questions (my learning process, what I specialize in, etc), talked about the tech they'll be using and none of that "wHaT aRe YoUr WeAkNeSsEs?" bullshit.

He seemed to like me, he seemed to like the fact that I've been programming for a long time even though I'm in my second semester in college and he also seemed to like that I'm somewhat of a Swiss army knife, a jack of all trades but master of none.

I just I was a bit too informal in the interview but whatever. I'm not taking this very seriously, if I get the job I get the job, if I don't that's fine too.

A programmer can code.

A developer is a jack of all trades jumping into any stack and mastering the basics in a weekend.

So why the fuck can't I grasp humans. Their code is spaghetti....
Debugging gives way to many problems...

Atleast my personal code has a feature creep and for once it's a good thing!

"A jack of all trades, master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one."

How do you think this fits in the dev world? Yay or nay

As I am not that advanced (started off as a 'jack of all trades' - huge mistake) in programming (about a bit below average), I'm just overwhelmed by knowledge of someone here, yet I am happy to know how much I can learn in next couple of years. 😀 I feel kinda stupid when I see everyone posting what programming horror or stuff they are going through and I am there be like (sometimes) - I know some of these words 😂
I am a newbie in this community (but soph. student in uni) thus I'd like to just say hi and wish everyone a good day even if things are not good at the time🤗😃💪

DEVOPS ~ Jack of all Trades, Master of Some™

@jonistorey

Sometimes life takes unexpected turns:

I studied mechanical engineering and did some "computer stuff" in my free time, you know, "programming" with Java, toyed around with HTML/CSS/PHP a few years ago, some local server stuff with a raspberry pi, nothing fancy.

Half a year ago i got hired as engineer first but they said they needed an "IT Guy" also.

What i did since then
*Researching, Testing and Planning the introduction of an ERP software
*Planning, coordinating and (partially) setting up a new server for the company (actually two cause redundancy (heavy lifting got done by our IT partner, its not like i suddenly know how to do the entire windows server administration)
*Writing 3 minor tools for some guys in the company in java
*Creating numereous excel vba scripts that make work a lot easier
*doing all the day to day business that comes up when absolutly noone know how to use a pc in the company
*consulting the boss about webshops and websites in general and finding a decent partner
*and some engineering

Did i mentioned that i studied mechanical engineering? I know nothing about all this, or rather, i know enough to know that i know not enough.

My current side project is creating a small intranet, so creating a new VM in Hyper V, setting up some OS (probably slim CentOS), getting a Webserver running and making it somewhat secure. Then i need to create some content, i am very close to just install a mediawiki and call it a day. If i write anything in PHP i fear that i make way to many erros or just reinvent the wheel, on the other hand, i couldnt find anything resembling what i need. I also had to create the front end side, i knew CSS around 2010, there is probably tons of stuff i dont know and i will make so many errors.

This is frustrating, everything i touch feels like i am venturing the beaten path but noone ever showed me the ropes so everything i do feels like childs play. I need an adult. Also the biggest Question remains: What i am?

No idea how I ended up here. So basically started with simple wordpress websites, transitioned to react. This move was the hardest.

Then caught up on node and mongodb. And before i knew i was doing db, backend and front end tasks. Now i know bits and pieces of everything

I don’t like the term “full stack dev”. I personally feel like I’m a Jack of all trades and master of none. There’s so much to learn if you’re a full stack developer. Endless possibilities, endless rants and endless frustration 🤯

How I got started part 2:

Thanks for all of the +1. True story...

I want to say something to those who are new, or not confident, or think that they are not smart enough, or can't afford to learn.

Everything I learned in college, everything that I do in my job, every tool that I use, I can get online for free. It is up to you to aspire. I make 6 figures. Go get it!

I survived the dotcom bubble, September eleventh and the financial crisis of 2008. My passion for my profession gotten me through the tough times.

Read. Study multiple subjects besides tech (especially business and visual design). Be a jack of all trades and a master of some.

Is being Jack of all trades and master of none bad in the software field?

Around the time Apple was denouncing it, I joined a chatroom for Adobe flash game developers. I really loved the idea of making games too, so I tried to learn ActionScript3. That failed, because it was my first language and since I was broke, I couldn't afford flash pro, so I was using an open source ide with okay documentation, but no newbie coder tutorials. I didn't actually start learning to code till Codecademy came out, I learned js, then I learned visual basic and Java for online courses the local community college had available, and now I'm taking C, C++, Java, and Python in college while I use C# at work and JS during my free time. Sadly, in a jack of all trades, master of none :/

Old old organization makes me feel like I'm stuck in my career. I'm hanging out with boomer programmers when I'm not even 30.

I wouldn't call myself an exceptional programmer. But the way the organization does it's software development makes me cringe sometimes.

1. They use a ready made solution for the main system, which was coded in PL/SQL. The system isn't mobile friendly, looks like crap and cannot be updated via vendor (that you need to pay for anyway) because of so many code customizations being done to it over the years. The only way to update it is to code it yourself, making the paid solutions useless
2. Adding CloudFlare in the middle of everything without knowing how to use it. Resulting in some countries/networks not being able to access systems that are otherwise fine
3. When devs are asked to separate frontend and backend for in house systems, they have no clue about what are those and why should we do it (most are used to PHP spaghetti where everything is in php&html)
4. Too dependent on RDBMS that slows down development time due to having to design ERD and relationships that are often changed when users ask for process revisions anyway
5. Users directly contact programmers, including their personal whatsapp to ask for help/report errors that aren't even errors. They didn't read user guides
6. I have to become programmer-sysadm-helpdesk-product owner kind of thing. And blamed directly when theres one thing wrong (excuse me for getting one thing wrong, I have to do 4 kind of works at one time)
7. Overtime is sort of expected. It is in the culture

If you asked me if these were normal 4 years ago I would say no. But I'm so used to it to the point where this becomes kinda normal. Jack of all trades, master of none, just a young programmer acting like I was born in the era of PASCAL and COBOL

Hello everyone !
I am a self taught programmer. Currently in last semester in electronics engineering. I want to become a software developer but can't decide the right career path for me to take. I like back end, Android, Data structures and algorithm, Parallel programming, Machine learning and computer vision, and even security. I am afraid I will remain the jack off all trades and won't be the master of any. This way I won't be doing any good in my career. Any advice as what to do ?

Having a hard time finding work. Jack of all trades, master of none. Went to college for a while, but never finished a degree. Mostly self taught and can easily learn on the fly.

Can program, 3d design and model, ins and outs of unreal engine 4, web stuff, can do IT work, knows VR standards and tricks, powerful desktop and powerful laptop, plenty of uhd cameras, knows Android and ios, etc.

Where do I look? What can I apply for? Can I make money on my own? Can I provide a service? How do I sell that?

HALP 😫

Today was the best day of my life. Being a jack of all trades, that I am, I decided to migrate a client's website to an new shiny self-managed server from a shared host. So I started by setting up a web server and deployment being run from a group bash scripts. This morning everything was ready to go after some testing, all that was left to do, was to update my DNS to point to the new server. I got that sorted, the DNS update took about 1 hour to propagate. So the homepage was loading just like before, it felt like I had just achieved something worthy of a mention on the interwebs — at least. Then I tried to navigate to another page other than the homepage and none of those were working as expected, at this point I was only getting 404s. Tweaked to settings and then all I could get were 502s. I spend about 8 hours dreading that uncomfortable call from the client, luckily that call never came through and all is well again. All this drama was caused by a bad .htaccess.

I initially chose System Administration simply because it was attractive to me to be the HMFIC, and generally above the law as corporate policy is concerned, as said law for the most part applied to people with less comprehensive knowledge about how any given system or technology works.

Since then though, I've learned that there's basically no better way to become a jack of all trades than being a sysadmin. There's no other position in the tech field that more easily and gracefully parlays into other specialties.

I write automation and aggregation software now, but I still consider myself a sysadmin by trade, as automation is just another function of system administration. I write everything in vim, and almost entirely in perl, because I am concerned above most other concerns about performance. I could learn C or Go or Rust or some other low-level compiled language, and I'm sure I could create even more performant software that way, but that would take me farther away from my passion: System Administration.

Job hunting is hard!

I have over 10 years experience in software engineering. I do mostly full stack, so I can say I'm a jack of all trades and a language agnostic. I'd say I'm a good software engineer and will be able to tackle any task I've been assigned to. Having said that, my confidence in finding a new role is at an all time low.

I've been job hunting for 3-4 months now and so far I've only had 1 interview and it was unsuccessful. Now have been invited to a first round interview for another company (first of many rounds). It's going to involve many technical challenges like coding, algorithms and data structure and system designs.

In general I've had hardly any interviews (about 6-7 in total in my whole career). Due to my lack of interview experience, I've been getting anxiety especially now that the job market is tougher than it has ever been.

Firstly, how do you guys prepare, if at all? I feel like many of these interviews require you to be good at interviews, almost like an exam. If these questions were presented to me when I first came out of college, I would've had a better chance.

Secondly, how do you take rejections? I didn't know how painful it was to get rejected, regardless of how much I wanted the role.

I've been fortunate enough to still have my current job, but because of that I don't really have much time, nor the mental energy to study for interviews.

Apologies I'm advanced for poor grammar, I'm writing this on the train.

Broadly there are two things which concerns me:

1: Clients' businesses fail miserably or change their direction.

2: Instead of focusing and improving the quality of their work/product, they prioritise remaining things instead.

BONUS: Don't forget those individuals who dream really big but fails to take any action towards it, just talking. I stay away from these people personally.

Because of these reasons design gets vanished or no longer valid for their new business venture, and don't forget the time and dedication it took to create, as a freelancer it hurts a bit.

I like working for non-profit organisations, most of them look for volunteers. Your work and efforts are alive, and you have to be jack of all trades IMO when dealing with them. Additionally in the process you will meet some extraordinary individuals.

at your workplace, do you get to work on different languages or do you all stick to just one language?

is there anything wrong with being jack of all trades?

More of a moaning than ranting.

I feel like I care a bit too much.

I'm not a great programmer - I may be decent, but nothing more. I know Java and C# enough to write production code that works but as I gather more experience it's getting more and more annoying that I have no one to teach me in work. All I know is what I have learned by myself, from courses online, books and just writing code.

And what drives me crazy is how I'm being pushed from one project and technology to another! It's been a week since I've returned from my exams and I've already worked in C# (ASP.Net Core, MS Office AddIn, WPF, .Net console app), Java (Spring, some legacy project with JBoss, Android) and to top it all, I had to come back to the worst project I've ever been in, where I'm implementing some third party system to county administration, just to finish it off.

I'm happy to gather experience - invaluable with only two years of real, production experience, but I can't focus on one thing because I'm immediately forced to work on another. For some reason I'm seen as Jack-of-all-trades but I really don't feel like that. It makes me anxious as fuck. Not to mention that my personal development as a Dev is held off because of working all alone with no supervisor.

Post Scriptum
Fuck my boss. He won't let me refractor our biggest project yet (console, C#) because "he can listen to my moaning all day but when clients start complaining he has to act fast". Yeah, right. Wish me luck with fixing sluggish performance without reworking base of the app.

Been applying for jobs lately and despite the years of experience and using the latest toys I’ve been finding it harder than ever to even get a positive response to my CV. One thing I’ve been noticing is that companies seem to now not care so much about frontend skills and more about complex algorithms when the role is ui focused, or to have a demand for dev ops experience. Are we really getting back to the days of thinking that jack of all trades can be experts in everything?

"i encourage you to take these traning. the trend now is to be multi-skilled. be the jack of all trades!"

fuck.