As much as I love being a generalist and believe it’s the better end of the breadth/depth spectrum in the current tech environment, it doesn’t always feel like a great way to operate, for several reasons:

First, it’s often difficult for a generalist to describe their job, not just to folks like friends and family who are unfamiliar with their domain, but also to managers in 1-on-1s, performance reviews, and promotion documents (I’ve had firsthand experience with the latter). A term related to generalist, factotum, can even have negative connotations in certain settings, despite a “glue person” being an essential role within pretty much any organization. Specialists, on the other hand, are easier to understand, as their work is often simply “what it says on the tin” (i.e. their job title).

Second, while a generalist has proximate knowledge of many things, when they spend time with legitimate experts in a topic (which is often, because they’re so curious), they are quick to realize how much they don’t know. And since this happens so much, the experience of “I don’t know as much as that other person” compounds into a malaise of “eh, I don’t know much about anything.” Inferiority complex ensues.

When interests and aptitudes are varied, it’s also tough to determine where to focus, paradox of choice and all that. Similarly, while there’s value in doing extra at times, it’s easy to get distracted and fail to deliver the most important thing, losing the proper balance between work work and non-work work. This leads to a feeling that one is “mildly disappointing everyone all the time.” When I have that feeling, burnout lurks not far behind.

I don’t have a tidy conclusion to give here, it’s just stuff I’ve been sitting with.