What Is a Wildcard Person?
17 years ago, there was a popular essay about this sort of person, and the label at the time was "Free Electron": <a href="https://randsinrepose.com/archives/free-electron/" rel="nofollow">https://randsinrepose.com/archives/free-electron/</a><p>Before that, they were known as "generalists", autodidacts, polymaths, etc.<p>The thing is that pretty much any clever person that's easily invested in novel things can become one of these people, so this label isn't reserved for people who are generalists, it is reserved for people who are not specialists.<p>If you care about things like income and career progression, do <i>not</i> let yourself become one of these people. They aren't valued, and it doesn't take a lot of staring at job postings or talking to hiring managers to figure out why.<p>Well-run organizations -- that is, organizations that can afford to pay good money for talent -- have clearly defined roles for people, and need only a few generalists to handle the nitty-gritties of cross-department communications and management.<p>The organizations that <i>most</i> need generalists are the ones that are constantly struggling to get their crap working right, so they need people who can do a little bit of everything, and as a consequence, they also can't afford to pay such people a lot of money.<p>It is much easier for a specialist to argue their value than a generalist. I believe there was a frontpage "Ask HN" about this today, probably why this article was posted now.<p>If however you can decouple happiness and satisfaction from income, and chasing novelties makes you happy, then by all means, keep doing what you love.<p>You'll just never make the same kind of money as the person that knows Kubernetes backwards and forwards and not much else.