Jack of All Trades: Master of One vs Master of None
Passion, grasp of the fundamentals, mastery, and resilience — the four pillars for a successful career in software development
Building a fulfilling career as a developer can be tough as there is such a big array of things you can do. I believe that finding your passion is the fundament for a great career, but it also essential to find your specific field of interest. Otherwise you might be stuck as a master of none.
The name ‘Jack’ always reminds me of Jack in the famous scene at the end of the movie ‘Titanic’ when Jack swapped his position on a piece of wood for his partner, Rose, so she can survive the cold of the open sea. What an epic love story.
However, this article isn’t about Titanic or a romantic love story but rather about the love for what you do. I will cover career-building topics such as swapping roles, stacks and professions from my perspective as a software engineer.
“Jack of all trades, master of none” is a figure of speech used in reference to a person who has dabbled in many skills, rather than gaining expertise by focusing on one” — WIKIPEDIA
The phrase originated from Robert Greene 1592 booklet Greene’s Groats-Worth of Wit.
How to Become A Master as A Developer
The world today as we know it is powered by software at its core. Therefore almost every product is driven either by an app, application or an operating software system. As the U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics projects, the demand for software developers will grow 22 percent from 2019 to 2029; much faster than other occupations. The IT ecosystem offers great career opportunities and a wide range of options. As a consequence the confusion of what exactly oneself should do and where to start kicks in. Thus most individuals with the intention to start a career in IT ask themselves at least a few of the following questions.
- Which field should I grow in?
- Do I go into mobile or web development?
- Do I rather go into the most innovative fields such as AI, cloud or database?
- Should I go into creating visual designs for all of the fields?
- Which area is growing and trendsetting?
- Which of the roles are financially most attractive: Designer, developer, — engineer, architect or product owner?
- Which tech stack is in demand the most: Java, Python, Php, JavaScript, Ruby or something else?
- AND HOW TO START?
The above questions could be answered by asking yourself:
- What are you passionate about?
- What motivates you to go into tech / your career / profession / job?
- Are you doing it just because of the money or are you inspired to do it?
If you don’t answer those questions for yourself, you might find yourself getting lost by trying to fit in and dabbling into different roles, fields and tech stacks. Always trying to meet the requirements for your job, but never really growing or feeling satisfied.
Once you know where you’re heading, you can start your journey to become a real professional and master your field of choice.
You don’t have to be a behavioural psychologist to know that being a master requires a great deal of effort, time, motivation and overall the act of repetition. Doing the same thing over and over might sound boring, but it is important for knowledge to stick. In finding passion in what you do, you become limitless. Hence strong performance and success are usually linked to strong passion. When you are passionate about something, you don’t get tired to repeat it. From repetition comes growth, from growth comes knowledge and from knowledge comes experience.
Mastering software development requires having a solid foundation of the fundamental principles, tools and techniques. Becoming a professional isn’t just knowing the latest trends, frameworks or tools but in mastering how to effectively solve problems using the right tools, techniques by considering principles and patterns.
On your journey to becoming a master, it can be inspiring to meet more experienced professionals in your field. More often you might be intimidated by higher-level professionals with more experience. It might be helpful to keep in mind that a person is more experienced only because he has mastered the skill already. It’s a fact that everything looks difficult at first and until you master it.
“In truth, whatever is worth doing at all, is worth doing well; and nothing can be done well without attention.” — Philip Dormer Stanhope (4th Earl of Chesterfield)
Are You A Master of None?
Ask yourself this question: What are you good at? What do you feel confident doing?
Do you find yourself having so many skills but not being 100% confident at any? As a developer, that might mean that you jump from one role or tech stack to another. Maybe you follow trends or financial benefits or you’re just interested in many different fields. If this is the case, you might end up becoming a master of none. Knowing a bit of everything, without being a specialist in anything.
This makes you a generalist. Meaning you have a wealth of knowledge and great adaptability of new environments and products. Translated to software development, you have diverse insights and an understanding of how the whole system works. You understand the ins and out, not scared to go out of your comfort zone or trying new stacks or new roles.
However, without proper mastery, you sacrifice depth for breadth. You will run into problems and as the complexity of things increases, you will have difficulties to fix the problem. The fact is, as much as you want to know everything, you can’t be proficient in all. It is almost impossible to be a master of all.
As a developer when you find yourself dabbling into all the different tech and frameworks and still don’t have a solid foundation on the basics or not good at any, then you’re right in the middle of this challenge.
“Too much of something is bad enough” — Too much by Spice Girls
Becoming a Master of One
As a master of one, you’re an expert at that one specific thing. Being an expert in a particular field or technology exposes you to profound experience and confidence in that area or that tech stack. You have the opportunity to become a true thought leader in your area of expertise. Here, the driving force is the passion for what you do. A person with mastery in one particular skill is usually full of confidence and hungry to learn more and more about their specific field of interest. With speciality often comes high job security and an increased earning capacity as specialists are hard to replace.
Your limitation is the employability of what you are specialised in. You’re not entirely flexible in choosing your next career step and have limited job opportunities. But with the right motivation and passion, you can grow to be a master of more than one thing. Although you will never be a master of all.
My Approach
“Man know thyself” — Socrates.
From my point of view, the key is to truly analyse yourself and find out what you can do and what you are really passionate about. Knowledge of yourself naturally leads to self-development and possibly mastery of skills.
Whether you intend to gain knowledge about several things or just focus on one specific area, you have to spend time in mastering to become a professional. Try to be at least a master in one area before dabbling into another. Again, with passion and motivation, mastering becomes easy.
Your passion is what actually makes you an expert, gets you hired and makes you successful in the long run. Instead of focusing on the ever-changing market and external factors, it is much more promising to focus on yourself and what really inspires and motivates you.
I’ll end with my own quote:
“It’s more fulfilling and productive doing what you love and in return you will love what you do” — Michael Eze (Software Engineer)
