Category: Careers

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Now on The Interconnected: Exposure

On the 17th, I gave my first structured talk outside of the walls of whatever company I was working for. (I’ve talked quite a bit in the course of my career, but it was mostly for in-company presentations, projects, training, etc.)

It made me think about the question of exposure — that is, the things we do to make sure that other people notice us and our careers and what we’re capable of. For someone who works in-house their entire life, the sphere of influence is pretty much confined to the in-house work… but for those working in agencies or freelancing, the sphere of influence is necessarily much larger.

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Now on The Interconnected: Staying motivated at work

Sometimes work hits a bad spot. Sometimes mentally you hit a bad spot. Both are OK (which is to say they happen, it’s not necessarily your fault, life goes on).

Sometimes we need a bit more motivation than we’d like to show up at work in the morning.

My August 5 post on The Interconnected was about staying motivated at work. Let me know if you have other ideas I should incorporate into another article. (Or write for us!)

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Now on The Interconnected: You are not “The Guy”

“The Guy” is a concept I heard about years ago. The Guy is that one person that the company absolutely cannot live without — The Guy cleans up the messes, works incredible hours, fixes things no one else can fix, and is indispensable. If The Guy is on vacation, work doesn’t get done. If The Guy gets sick, or has a family emergency, no one’s sure how to pick up The Guy’s work.

Thing is, no company over a certain size should have a The Guy. I’ve seen many situations over the years where The Guy was the result of a manager who didn’t want to staff up or provide adequate support, which forced The Guy develop. I’ve also seen many situations where people made themselves The Guy by putting so much personal pressure on themselves that they became The Guy just because.

Neither of those is healthy. My July 12 post on The Interconnected explains why, and what to do about it.

Read You are not “The Guy”.

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Full Stack of Something

Here’s the thing that’s hurting my head today: the “full stack developer” job listing.

A Full Stack Developer is someone who can develop at every layer of the software development stack, from the servers to the front end. This includes:

  • Server, Network, and Hosting Environment.
  • Data Modeling
  • Business Logic
  • API layer / Action Layer / MVC
  • User Interface
  • User Experience
  • Understanding what the customer and the business need.

My role as an Information Architect lands firmly inside of the sixth one down, “User Experience”, and often I’m not the Information Architect on a project, I’m the User Experience Designer. (Even as an Information Architect there are expectations that I can talk fluently about the business logic, user interface, and customer and business needs, so the User Experience container is by no means leakproof.)

User Experience is a huge field of study in and of itself. In the “tradition” of the Full Stack Developer posting, I suspect we should call ourselves “Full Stack Designers” instead of User Experience Designers, because it gives a much better impression of our wide range of responsibilities, which include:

  • Information Architecture
  • Architecture
  • Content creation
  • Visual Design & Information Design
  • Human Factors
  • Industrial Design
  • Interaction Design
  • Human-Computer Interaction
  • Sound Design
  • Interface Design
  • Usability Engineering
  • Content Strategy

…and probably more than I can’t think of.

Each of the topics that makes up a Full Stack Designer can be (and in many cases is) its own full career with its own full educational system, training, and roles in an organization.

For example, I’m thoroughly well-versed in Information Architecture and Interaction Design, comfortable in some of the Usability Engineering methods and knowledge and some of the Content Strategy methods and knowledge (but not others), and not as deep in Visual and Information Design. I can’t even comfortably say I’m a Full Stack Designer (since I’m aware of my own weaknesses and imposter syndrome is a thing).

I suspect the same thing is true of all of the other traits that a Full Stack Developer is supposed to be familiar with.

So how in the world is someone supposed to be a Full Stack Developer and be set up for success by their employer? Is it a significant reliance on vendor products, frameworks, and external knowledge? Is it by only building small websites? I’m baffled.

And suspicious. I should add that I’m suspicious, because to do six careers well takes a lot of time, and while it might come with a lot of salary, I’m having trouble imagining it comes with a lot of sleep. Hustle is hype, and anyone who’s told me otherwise was trying to pay me one salary for at least two jobs worth of work.

Me, I’m happy with one job that pays the bills, the occasional vacation, and a few pinball tournaments or races or Phillies games. And as much as I believe that there’s space for both specialists and generalists (and maybe even a few compartmentalists) I’m also quite a bit worried that anyone working six career paths under one job title is, well, over-generalizing.

I’m worried about the Full Stack Developer precisely because it includes the Full Stack Designer. If an employer believes that the 8+ specialties in my field are nothing but a subset of skills for someone who is already doing 5 other jobs, then what do they think of hiring someone in my field? Are you specializing in IT by being a generalist in Design?

I don’t have answers, just a headache, and an observation that this “full stack” world seems awfully general.