I don’t think I consciously became a generalist, it just happened based on necessity. I’ve worked on a lot of things that have required me to jump around a lot. I learned enough to get the job done. I always think it would be nice to know more, but there is only so much time on the day, so I don’t sweat it.

Going out of my way to dive deep on something I will never use seems like a waste of time to me. My company sent me to Citrix training years ago. I was going to get certified, but didn’t end up doing it. The class and certification seem designed for someone setting up the entire Citrix infra for their company. In my role, I just made a publish app here and there, which I already knew how to do. After the training, our use of Citrix went down, and I haven’t touched it at all in 10 years. I’m glad I didn’t waste my time deep diving on technology I’d never actually use. If we use it again in the future, I’ll have to re-learn it either way, since it’s been so long.

I go beyond on topics I actually find interesting, or seem like they will be relevant to my job for a longer period of time, where I will see some pay off.