Hello! Sloan, DEV Moderator and resident mascot, back with another question submitted by a DEV community member. π¦₯
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Today's question is:
I've been honing my skills as a software dev, but still consider myself a beginner. I've heard folks talking about T-shaped developers and it seems like it's a common goal to specialize in a specific area, but then also nurture a wide range of basic skills that aren't necessarily tied to tech. I feel like I'm getting to the point where I need to specialize, but I'm not really sure which area to move into. How do you go about discovering your specialization? Any tips or things to consider when looking to specialize in something?
Share your thoughts and lets help a fellow DEV member out! Remember to keep kind and stay classy. π
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Top comments (2)
You can try to look for something actively, or you can base your choice on what you feel you get the most out of.
I guess the more you work on something, the more you become a specialist in it. That's specialisation by accident.
You could look around at tech topics and themes in the general media to find out what you think would have a fruitful future. That's specialisation of domain - rather broad tech-wise, but domain specialisation is good to have on a team, often as a lead or interfacing to management (or even management itself - would be nice to have managers with more hands-on experience).
You could look at various tech stacks and see which ones you find most interesting or most exciting for the different use cases of tech you've seen so far. Typically that's going to be languages or engines or libraries, or particular solution ecosystems, etc. That's specialisation by stack or even by specific tech - these are the gurus of particular solutions and the deep-divers, tinkerers and architects'.
You could look back on all the tools you've worked with, and find which ones were either the most frustrating, or the most difficult domain to solve, and focus on improving the situation. That's specialisation out of spite. F/// this why won't it work
*yeet*π€£AI of course. While itβs not to lateβ¦