Generalists vs Specialists

My answer of choice is Team Player and I mean it.

We can only be either generalists or specialists compared to something. A back-end engineer is a specialist when compared to a full-stack developer, but this same person might be a generalist when compared to someone who knows all the intricate details of how a language or framework runs in its core.

Either way, we cannot permanently be in any state. At times we must focus deeply on a certain topic, and at times we must go wide and tackle problems that we have never seen before.

Thus my answer of choice: team player. I believe that the way to go is to help the team however we can. If that means learning something out of the ordinary, executing what you already know, or even not coding at all, so be it.

Just as we learn by teaching, so do our careers grow when make someone else’s career grow. In my opinion, individual success should not be our number one priority. We can go much further and much faster than we might realise in collaboration than in isolation.