When I started my first large project as an independent consultant 33 years ago, I remember how I was welcomed by one of the most senior developers in the team I was hired to work with. He asked me if I knew “a-certain-development-tool-you-hopefully-haven’t-even-heard-of”. I said no and he asked me why I was there then.
I was super young and hadn’t expected that kind of questioning, but I replied something along the lines of: I thought I could learn it fairly quickly, since I’d worked a lot with “another-development-tool-family-that-was-quite-similar”. It turned out fine.
It only just occurred to me that this may have been a formative moment for me, and perhaps one of the reasons why a tech-agnostic approach has made so much sense to me...?
Fast forward 33 years. If I were asked a similar question now, I think my answer would be that I try my best to be what’s described in the text Expert Generalists by Martin Fowler, Unmesh Joshi and Gitanjali V. Thanks guys, I really like that text! It makes so much sense. It’s also a very good description of the kind of people we would like to hire at factor10. I only wish I’d had that text a long time ago, but better late than never.
When I read an early draft this autumn, I was genuinely moved, to the point of getting wet eyes. That’s not my usual reaction to a tech text. :) I’m not sure why, but perhaps it felt like being understood and not being alone in an ambition I’ve had for a long time. An ambition that’s often been seen as a bit weird, or at least not mainstream.
I do have one issue with the text though, and that’s the word “expert”. Maybe it’s a Swedish thing, but the word has been so overused and abused that I almost automatically distrust it. I find it’s more often than not used for people who aren’t very skilled and experienced at all. There are exceptions, of course, but it’s still a troublesome word for me. But that’s just a minor detail in an otherwise excellent piece.
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