Salary transparency at Stack Overflow

[CamiKaze]

No disrespect but you seem to be too much a jack of all trades master of none type of guy.

I've been thinking about this for a while and trying to understand how it really relates to being a developer.
As a developer, you get to a point where you can easily develop software in many languages.
Does this then make you a master of none?
How is this measured?
What if you have certificates for each language that you know with the CS Degree to back up your theoretical and problem solving skills?

Apart from the skills that I already have, there was a need to create something in Photoshop recently and I couldn't wait for some Photoshop guy to create what needed to be done. I went ahead and created what needed to be done with my limited knowledge of Photoshop and delivered something that is pretty much being used right now. Does this interest in broadening your knowledge and skill set contribute to the saying, "master of none"?

I would think that the statement rather refers to 1 person doing the tasks that 1 would find in many different professions.

As for master, I think that I am a master of getting the job done!

 

[Thor]

I've been thinking about this for a while and trying to understand how it really relates to being a developer.
As a developer, you get to a point where you can easily develop software in many languages.
Does this then make you a master of none?
How is this measured?
What if you have certificates for each language that you know with the CS Degree to back up your theoretical and problem solving skills?

Apart from the skills that I already have, there was a need to create something in Photoshop recently and I couldn't wait for some Photoshop guy to create what needed to be done. I went ahead and created what needed to be done with my limited knowledge of Photoshop and delivered something that is pretty much being used right now. Does this interest in broadening your knowledge and skill set contribute to the saying, "master of none"?

/subscribed

 

[rward]

With FNB you can receive wire transfers into your account from overseas. Not with capitec

*checks bank account*

Nope, I strongly disagree.

 

[Hamster]

What if you have certificates for each language that you know

We'd call you a dunce and make it our life mission to proof your certificates worthless.

A person that specialises in a language isn't really a master of anything. If you know how to use that language effectively in a certain business area (frontend, backend, api, wherever) then you are a "master" of something.

 

[CamiKaze]

We'd call you a dunce and make it our life mission to proof your certificates worthless.

A person that specialises in a language isn't really a master of anything. If you know how to use that language effectively in a certain business area (frontend, backend, api, wherever) then you are a "master" of something.

I get what you are saying, but I have never been faced with something that I couldn't develop.
Have you received a project where you thought to yourself, "sjoe... this looks very difficult..." but then you end up getting it right? - It's all part of learning. None of us know everything straight out the gate.

The reason why I brought the certificate part up is because it is apparently used to measure/assess whether you are a master or not when at an interview.

 

[Hamster]

I get what you are saying, but I have never been faced with something that I couldn't develop.
Have you received a project where you thought to yourself, "sjoe... this looks very difficult..." but then you end up getting it right? - It's all part of learning. None of us know everything straight out the gate.

The reason why I brought the certificate part up is because it as apparently used to measure/assess whether you are a master or not when at an interview.

Well if you have never struggled with concurrent data caches and your Angular/Reactjs front ends communicate perfectly with those services and your database indexes are all well thought out and not buckling under heavy load then I would say you are the shiz.

 

[CamiKaze]

Well if you have never struggled with concurrent data caches and your Angular/Reactjs front ends communicate perfectly with those services and your database indexes are all well thought out and not buckling under heavy load then I would say you are the shiz.

You can throw whatever examples you want, each and every one of us can throw examples as well. I can even throw some embedded C examples of back in the day when I developed software for Point of Sale devices... It means jack shst because we all have examples to use. What I'm saying is that not everyone knows everything straight out the gate and learning how to do whatever example you can come up with is part of being a developer. Should it really be a limiting factor if besides from your current skill set, you now want to learn some IoT things as well? Or must you stick to 1 thing for the rest of your life to eventually be considered a master? To me, that statement only makes sense if you are doing many different roles in 1 job.

 

[semaphore]

As for master, I think that I am a master of getting the job done!

What is the most complex problem you've had to solve using comp sci? Off the top of your head.

 

[Hamster]

You can throw whatever examples you want, each and every one of us can throw examples as well. I can even throw some embedded C examples of back in the day when I developed software for Point of Sale devices... It means jack shst because we all have examples to use. What I'm saying is that not everyone knows everything straight out the gate and learning how to do whatever example you can come up with is part of being a developer. Should it really be a limiting factor if besides from your current skill set, you now want to learn some IoT things as well? Or must you stick to 1 thing for the rest of your life to eventually be considered a master? To me, that statement only makes sense if you are doing many different roles in 1 job.

The examples shouldn't matter since you've never been faced with a problem you couldn't develop (I'm assuming you've come across them - DB indexes, REST APIs, javascript are hardly edge case dev work).

Either way, you should decide how important your career is to you versus how important all the other parts of your life and invest the appropriate amount of effort on the opportunities that come your way (or you seek out).

 

[CamiKaze]

What is the most complex problem you've had to solve using comp sci? Off the top of your head.

Another one of the I know how to do this, I know how to do that type of stuff where everyone in this world has an example of how difficult their job can be?
I can tell you that I have a pair of Nikes and you can tell me you have a pair of Adidas... it doesn't matter. At the end of the day, it's about getting the job done in the best way that you possibly can.

I still want to know if "Jack of all trades, master of none" refers to the tasks and knowledge you have in 1 role, compared to 1 role with many other roles in it...

We can also look at it from the point of view of.... "hmm, I know the theory behind it and I have an idea of how to do it, but what is the best possible way to develop it?" and this is the thinking behind any type of project regardless of language/s that you know.

 

[semaphore]

Another one of the I know how to do this, I know how to do that type of stuff where everyone in this world has an example of how difficult their job can be?
I can tell you that I have a pair of Nikes and you can tell me you have a pair of Adidas... it doesn't matter. At the end of the day, it's about getting the job done in the best way that you possibly can.

I still want to know if "Jack of all trades, master of none" refers to the tasks and knowledge you have in 1 role compared to, 1 role with many other roles in it...

We can also look at it from the point of view of.... "hmm, I know the theory behind it and I have an idea of how to do it, but what is the best possible way to develop it?" and this is the thinking behind any type of project regardless of language/s that you know.

I asked a simple question, yes its about getting the job done. But not all developers have the skills or intellect to get the job done. I would rather use a specialist for a particular task if its their strength, than someone who can do everything at sub-par.

 

[FarligOpptreden]

I asked a simple question, yes its about getting the job done. But not all developers have the skills or intellect to get the job done. I would rather use a specialist for a particular task if its their strength, than someone who can do everything at sub-par.

I think his statement and question relates exactly to this: he has never been given a problem in any development domain that he couldn't efficiently solve.

I'm wondering the same thing, as I'm bombarded with challenges and questions from my own developers (7 of them) daily. They all work at different clients in different industries using different technologies. I've never been faced with a problem that I couldn't solve in a couple of minutes, an hour tops.

The problems range across application tiers spanning Java, C#, JavaScript (Node.js), T-SQL, NoSQL (MongoDB), HTML, CSS and jQuery / JavaScript. I regard myself as quite proficient across all those languages and frameworks and we deal with fairly complex industries and clients (financial services, telco, healthcare and manufacturing, with well known corporates and listed companies).

I think it boils down to be a master problem solver and solutions provider using technology, not being a "master API builder" or "UX specialist" or "database savant".

 

[cguy]

You can throw whatever examples you want, each and every one of us can throw examples as well.

No, you really, really can't.

The reason jack of all trades isn't particularly sought after, is that the skills tend to be superficial enough that the subset of these skills needed to do a job can be picked up in a few months by most. Or possibly, there are other members of a given team that together can fulfill the role of said person as part of their job.

The reason a certain masters are sought after is that they have a highly in-demand skill-set that would take someone else years to become proficient in and possibly a decade or two to become an expert in, assuming that that "someone else" could ever learn to do it at all (possibly a function of intellectual ability, but also possibly a function of unique experience, or both).

The crux of your argument seems to be that you have never encountered a truly difficult problem, so you assume they don't exist.

 

[semaphore]

I think his statement and question relates exactly to this: he has never been given a problem in any development domain that he couldn't efficiently solve.

.

Then he needs a challenge or his business domain is not complex.

 

[FarligOpptreden]

Then he needs a challenge or his business domain is not complex.

I completely agree. You have to keep challenging yourself in order to grow. I can't stand doing formulaic dev work more than a couple of hours at most, that's why the problems get thrown to my side to find the most efficient solution and I give my team a framework, pattern or direction to solve the problem in.

 

[CamiKaze]

Can any of you truly say that you are a complete master?

 

[cguy]

Can any of you truly say that you are a complete master?

A "complete" master? That's a jejune notion. One either has skills that are very difficult to obtain or one does not.

 

[cguy]

A "complete" master? That's a jejune notion. One either has skills that are very difficult to obtain or one does not.

Actually, I may be mistaken...

This is a theatrical rendition of last weeks progress meeting. A colleague claimed to have the best lock free hash table implementation, and was rubbing my face in it (calling himself the "master"), but mine was actually way better, which I managed to demonstrate and turned the tables. The meeting went something like this:
[video=youtube_share;PWVhiIisH30]http://youtu.be/PWVhiIisH30[/video]

 

[rward]

I get what you are saying, but I have never been faced with something that I couldn't develop.
Have you received a project where you thought to yourself, "sjoe... this looks very difficult..." but then you end up getting it right? - It's all part of learning. None of us know everything straight out the gate.

The reason why I brought the certificate part up is because it is apparently used to measure/assess whether you are a master or not when at an interview.

Except that you are googling and copy pasting your way through the problem where an expert in the field has knowledge of building similar systems before.
They know that for API's X is better than Y to start off with but down the line Y work out better because of A, B and C.

Meanwhile you;'re off pasting Method Z which is a bit buggy but gets the job done for now .. Until 100 users hit the thing simultaneously and then you realise that to get to X you need to refactor a lot of stuff.
Now you're at X and .. damn you really need to be at Y.

 

[Cicero]

This 'Jack of all trades, master of none' conundrum has been plaguing my mind for a couple of years now. The struggle is real.