<story><title>Ask HN: What job can a “jack of all trades” look for?</title><text>tl;dnr: Unhappy at my job after &amp;gt;7 years. Love being a jack of all trades. Love learning new things. Hate being stagnant. Hate being the smartest person in the room. Need something new. What roles out there fit the skill set of someone that is good at a whole lot of things, but doesn&amp;#x27;t feel like a master&amp;#x2F;senior in any one of them?&lt;p&gt;-&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve been at the same small company for over 7 years. I started at the bottom, worked my way to the top after 3 years, and I&amp;#x27;ve been here since. For a couple years I created new positions for myself because I hate being stagnant, but there&amp;#x27;s nothing else to do here.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m proficient in many things and enjoy doing all of them. Development (full stack), server admin, data center management, DevOps, project management, managing teams, VoIP, routing&amp;#x2F;switching, training, sales... the list goes on.&lt;p&gt;My issue is I haven&amp;#x27;t had formal training in a lot of it, and I didn&amp;#x27;t have any mentors or people above me to teach me more because this company is too small. I just love learning and love moving forward so I kept teaching myself new things, and then using them in the company. I don&amp;#x27;t actually feel like I have impostor syndrome, but I also feel like someone that is filling these roles at another company probably knows&amp;#x2F;does it better job than I can. I&amp;#x27;m just a big fish in a small pond here.&lt;p&gt;So finally to my question: what role&amp;#x2F;job title I should be looking for? All the searching I do points me to one specific roles. PHP Developer. Systems Admin. Network Engineer. Etc. Are there any other &amp;quot;Jack of all trades&amp;quot; out there that can tell me what your job title is, and what I could be looking for?</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>akcreek</author><text>I have a wide-ranging self-taught skill set as well that I&amp;#x27;ve developed over the last 14 years of running my own businesses. I&amp;#x27;ll share what I&amp;#x27;m doing from a high level as it might not be the most common path.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve been acquiring small but promising businesses that don&amp;#x27;t have the right team in place to move them forward. I bootstrap them on my own and replace my roles as the business can afford staff. Once enough roles are replaced, I&amp;#x27;m able to start looking for the next business. I&amp;#x27;m on my fourth business now. Sold the first two, the third is a productized service netting seven figures, and I just acquired the fourth, which is a SaaS business that I believe has great potential.&lt;p&gt;Currently, I&amp;#x27;m formalizing this method and will build a team that can execute it much more quickly than me alone. I&amp;#x27;ll be shooting for a new business every 12-18 months to build a portfolio. We&amp;#x27;ll have a group of partners and a small staff that will be focused on getting these acquisitions straightened out and growing, then we&amp;#x27;ll install a team to run them full-time and we&amp;#x27;ll go on to the next one.&lt;p&gt;So just taking what I&amp;#x27;ve been doing for years and everything I&amp;#x27;ve learned from it and scaling it up to reduce the timeframe from acquisition to growth and then operation of the business.&lt;p&gt;If OP or anyone else who identifies themself in a similar manner wants to chat, email is in my profile. I&amp;#x27;m actively looking for people like us to work with.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>fxtentacle</author><text>I support this approach. I learned a lot about online marketing and selling physical products by purchasing a struggling online shop. There&amp;#x27;s even dedicated web pages like flippa.com or empireflippers.com</text></comment>
<story><title>Ask HN: What job can a “jack of all trades” look for?</title><text>tl;dnr: Unhappy at my job after &amp;gt;7 years. Love being a jack of all trades. Love learning new things. Hate being stagnant. Hate being the smartest person in the room. Need something new. What roles out there fit the skill set of someone that is good at a whole lot of things, but doesn&amp;#x27;t feel like a master&amp;#x2F;senior in any one of them?&lt;p&gt;-&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve been at the same small company for over 7 years. I started at the bottom, worked my way to the top after 3 years, and I&amp;#x27;ve been here since. For a couple years I created new positions for myself because I hate being stagnant, but there&amp;#x27;s nothing else to do here.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m proficient in many things and enjoy doing all of them. Development (full stack), server admin, data center management, DevOps, project management, managing teams, VoIP, routing&amp;#x2F;switching, training, sales... the list goes on.&lt;p&gt;My issue is I haven&amp;#x27;t had formal training in a lot of it, and I didn&amp;#x27;t have any mentors or people above me to teach me more because this company is too small. I just love learning and love moving forward so I kept teaching myself new things, and then using them in the company. I don&amp;#x27;t actually feel like I have impostor syndrome, but I also feel like someone that is filling these roles at another company probably knows&amp;#x2F;does it better job than I can. I&amp;#x27;m just a big fish in a small pond here.&lt;p&gt;So finally to my question: what role&amp;#x2F;job title I should be looking for? All the searching I do points me to one specific roles. PHP Developer. Systems Admin. Network Engineer. Etc. Are there any other &amp;quot;Jack of all trades&amp;quot; out there that can tell me what your job title is, and what I could be looking for?</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>akcreek</author><text>I have a wide-ranging self-taught skill set as well that I&amp;#x27;ve developed over the last 14 years of running my own businesses. I&amp;#x27;ll share what I&amp;#x27;m doing from a high level as it might not be the most common path.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve been acquiring small but promising businesses that don&amp;#x27;t have the right team in place to move them forward. I bootstrap them on my own and replace my roles as the business can afford staff. Once enough roles are replaced, I&amp;#x27;m able to start looking for the next business. I&amp;#x27;m on my fourth business now. Sold the first two, the third is a productized service netting seven figures, and I just acquired the fourth, which is a SaaS business that I believe has great potential.&lt;p&gt;Currently, I&amp;#x27;m formalizing this method and will build a team that can execute it much more quickly than me alone. I&amp;#x27;ll be shooting for a new business every 12-18 months to build a portfolio. We&amp;#x27;ll have a group of partners and a small staff that will be focused on getting these acquisitions straightened out and growing, then we&amp;#x27;ll install a team to run them full-time and we&amp;#x27;ll go on to the next one.&lt;p&gt;So just taking what I&amp;#x27;ve been doing for years and everything I&amp;#x27;ve learned from it and scaling it up to reduce the timeframe from acquisition to growth and then operation of the business.&lt;p&gt;If OP or anyone else who identifies themself in a similar manner wants to chat, email is in my profile. I&amp;#x27;m actively looking for people like us to work with.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>chirau</author><text>This business of buying and selling businesses, I have heard a bit about it here and there but i don&amp;#x27;t even know where to start looking for people who are either selling or who are buying. I&amp;#x27;d love to look into it as I think I would quite enjoy it. Any resources you could point to?</text></comment>