I agree with this. Deep knowledge is actually how you advance a career to higher levels. One tricky balancing point though is that you can be at one company for too long. My rule of thumb is usually when I stop learning and feel like I achieved what I set out to achieve I'm done.
I also see, particularly at places like Google, Facebook, Amazon, with their own tech stacks, that you can be there too long and become out of touch with the broader industry. I was at G for ten years, which was a bit long but about right. WDYT?
Interesting exploration. I was lucky in my first job out of university - a small company that provided mini-computer system solutions to medium and large physician offices. That gave me the opportunity to become very good at our assembler-based application while also doing a deep-dive in our new customers' practices, to learn what they needed to have customized, then write and test the customizations, and finally deliver the system (someone else did the actual physical install), migrate the data, train the staff, and get them through their first month-end. That provided a great balance between my needs to be constantly learning and being challenged and gaining deep expertise in something of value, growing expertise in system design, business practices, performance tuning, problem solving, data migration, yada yada yada. That foundation led to consulting employment with various world-class providers (IBM, one of the huge accounting/business consulting firms, Oracle) as well as a grand time for several years as an independent consultant. It was a deep need to live and work in one place - stop full-time travel - that drove me to a headquarters job, but even then I've been best served by bringing years of wide and deep experience to addressing the needs of a variety of organizations.
Anyway, I think different people thrive in different conditions. Some of us are wired for the thrill of running an organization that has hundreds of people while drifting away from the hands-on. Some of us do best by having a routine that is comfortable. Some need to block out all distraction and dig deep into a particular area. Some of us love to learn and teach, and need both immersion and breadth, time alone and time with people. It's pretty cool to be able to construct a path that matches your core needs.
As somebody who has never switched jobs and was rehired to the same company after being laid off after 10 years, I have mixed feelings about this article. On one hand, I having worked in many different roles and orgs in my 10 years where each subsequent role built on the knowledge from the previous one (junior eng, mid-level, team TL, team manager, manager of managers), but on the other hand, I know only one culture (culture defers between orgs; but that’s minor relative to the company culture overall). So I don’t know if I am staying too long in one company or hopping too much within the same company ... or both!
You nailed it again. With a job tenure approaching drinking age I really find this piece accurate.
The phenomena of "cultural ADHD" and lack of depth are getting some recognition. There's the "Deep Work" (book by Cal Newport—part 4 "drain the shallows" feels particularly relevant); the Digital Detox movement (which kinda misses the point but nevertheless can open a few minds to better ways of thinking.) On a more philosophical track, The Long Now Foundation; also Anathem, an excellent yarn by Neal Stephenson very much on the theme of going deep.
I agree with this. Deep knowledge is actually how you advance a career to higher levels. One tricky balancing point though is that you can be at one company for too long. My rule of thumb is usually when I stop learning and feel like I achieved what I set out to achieve I'm done.
I also see, particularly at places like Google, Facebook, Amazon, with their own tech stacks, that you can be there too long and become out of touch with the broader industry. I was at G for ten years, which was a bit long but about right. WDYT?
Interesting exploration. I was lucky in my first job out of university - a small company that provided mini-computer system solutions to medium and large physician offices. That gave me the opportunity to become very good at our assembler-based application while also doing a deep-dive in our new customers' practices, to learn what they needed to have customized, then write and test the customizations, and finally deliver the system (someone else did the actual physical install), migrate the data, train the staff, and get them through their first month-end. That provided a great balance between my needs to be constantly learning and being challenged and gaining deep expertise in something of value, growing expertise in system design, business practices, performance tuning, problem solving, data migration, yada yada yada. That foundation led to consulting employment with various world-class providers (IBM, one of the huge accounting/business consulting firms, Oracle) as well as a grand time for several years as an independent consultant. It was a deep need to live and work in one place - stop full-time travel - that drove me to a headquarters job, but even then I've been best served by bringing years of wide and deep experience to addressing the needs of a variety of organizations.
Anyway, I think different people thrive in different conditions. Some of us are wired for the thrill of running an organization that has hundreds of people while drifting away from the hands-on. Some of us do best by having a routine that is comfortable. Some need to block out all distraction and dig deep into a particular area. Some of us love to learn and teach, and need both immersion and breadth, time alone and time with people. It's pretty cool to be able to construct a path that matches your core needs.
As somebody who has never switched jobs and was rehired to the same company after being laid off after 10 years, I have mixed feelings about this article. On one hand, I having worked in many different roles and orgs in my 10 years where each subsequent role built on the knowledge from the previous one (junior eng, mid-level, team TL, team manager, manager of managers), but on the other hand, I know only one culture (culture defers between orgs; but that’s minor relative to the company culture overall). So I don’t know if I am staying too long in one company or hopping too much within the same company ... or both!
You nailed it again. With a job tenure approaching drinking age I really find this piece accurate.
The phenomena of "cultural ADHD" and lack of depth are getting some recognition. There's the "Deep Work" (book by Cal Newport—part 4 "drain the shallows" feels particularly relevant); the Digital Detox movement (which kinda misses the point but nevertheless can open a few minds to better ways of thinking.) On a more philosophical track, The Long Now Foundation; also Anathem, an excellent yarn by Neal Stephenson very much on the theme of going deep.
Feels like this time AI done a bit better job ;P in podcasting
Here's a 2 min audio version of "What we lose through job hopping" from Wednesday Wisdom converted using recast app.
https://app.letsrecast.ai/r/5b68917a-5b6b-4745-81a4-47de1b80b21f