<story><title>Being OK with not being extraordinary</title><url>https://www.tiffanymatthe.com/not-extraordinary</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>wjossey</author><text>This is my career so far in a nutshell.&lt;p&gt;I’m an average programmer.&lt;p&gt;I’m an excellent problem solver.&lt;p&gt;I have an above average work ethic.&lt;p&gt;I’m an excellent communicator.&lt;p&gt;Basically, I combined all of these traits and found roles that leveraged these traits to maximize my impact.&lt;p&gt;Not for nothing, but this is why my liberal arts college was profoundly impactful for me, despite not getting a “top tier” CS education. My writing abilities were given a shot in the arm, because I had to write so many analysis papers for my government minor. My understanding of human behavior was expanded by my psychology courses. My understanding of how I should never design a UI was solidified by how poorly I did during a year of art classes.&lt;p&gt;Some days I wish I was as strong mathematically as my friends who went to MIT, or as talented with programming languages as my friends who went to Cambridge, but each one of us have been able to have successful careers, despite our differences in breadth&amp;#x2F;depth.</text></item><item><author>umvi</author><text>&amp;gt; Climbing to a higher vantage point can also unlock new forms of extraordinary that you might have never noticed before.&lt;p&gt;I read an article once about how the amount of work to get into the top tier in a single area is astronomical, but the amount of work to become top tier in a combination of 2-3 fields is attainable by almost anyone.&lt;p&gt;For example, becoming a top tier statistician is hard. But becoming a top tier statistician&amp;#x2F;programmer is easier. In other words, if you can get to a state where you know more statistics than your average programmer and more programming than your average statistician, then suddenly you are an above-average programmer&amp;#x2F;statistician. Keep improving those two skills and you may start to &amp;quot;unlock new forms of extraordinary&amp;quot;. Or maybe you are a music teacher, and also pretty good at programming, and so you can make extraordinary music teaching software that is way better than the competition&amp;#x27;s because you understand the nuances of music teaching intimately enough that you capture them clearly in software requirements. Or maybe you are pretty good at art, pretty good at music composition, pretty good at programming, pretty good at story telling (not necessarily top tier in any one category though)... and you combine all of those skills to single-handedly create a game that by many measures is extraordinary[0][1].&lt;p&gt;Something like that. Anyway, the point being, you may not be extraordinary in any one field, but it isn&amp;#x27;t too hard to achieve extraordinary things due to a combination of skills in multiple fields if you work at it.&lt;p&gt;[0] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;undertale.com&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;undertale.com&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cavestory.org&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cavestory.org&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dominotw</author><text>&amp;gt; I’m an excellent problem solver.&lt;p&gt;Don&amp;#x27;t mean this to be a mean comment but how did you assess this?&lt;p&gt;I think i am good problem solver but i don&amp;#x27;t know if i am better than anyone else.</text></comment>
<story><title>Being OK with not being extraordinary</title><url>https://www.tiffanymatthe.com/not-extraordinary</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>wjossey</author><text>This is my career so far in a nutshell.&lt;p&gt;I’m an average programmer.&lt;p&gt;I’m an excellent problem solver.&lt;p&gt;I have an above average work ethic.&lt;p&gt;I’m an excellent communicator.&lt;p&gt;Basically, I combined all of these traits and found roles that leveraged these traits to maximize my impact.&lt;p&gt;Not for nothing, but this is why my liberal arts college was profoundly impactful for me, despite not getting a “top tier” CS education. My writing abilities were given a shot in the arm, because I had to write so many analysis papers for my government minor. My understanding of human behavior was expanded by my psychology courses. My understanding of how I should never design a UI was solidified by how poorly I did during a year of art classes.&lt;p&gt;Some days I wish I was as strong mathematically as my friends who went to MIT, or as talented with programming languages as my friends who went to Cambridge, but each one of us have been able to have successful careers, despite our differences in breadth&amp;#x2F;depth.</text></item><item><author>umvi</author><text>&amp;gt; Climbing to a higher vantage point can also unlock new forms of extraordinary that you might have never noticed before.&lt;p&gt;I read an article once about how the amount of work to get into the top tier in a single area is astronomical, but the amount of work to become top tier in a combination of 2-3 fields is attainable by almost anyone.&lt;p&gt;For example, becoming a top tier statistician is hard. But becoming a top tier statistician&amp;#x2F;programmer is easier. In other words, if you can get to a state where you know more statistics than your average programmer and more programming than your average statistician, then suddenly you are an above-average programmer&amp;#x2F;statistician. Keep improving those two skills and you may start to &amp;quot;unlock new forms of extraordinary&amp;quot;. Or maybe you are a music teacher, and also pretty good at programming, and so you can make extraordinary music teaching software that is way better than the competition&amp;#x27;s because you understand the nuances of music teaching intimately enough that you capture them clearly in software requirements. Or maybe you are pretty good at art, pretty good at music composition, pretty good at programming, pretty good at story telling (not necessarily top tier in any one category though)... and you combine all of those skills to single-handedly create a game that by many measures is extraordinary[0][1].&lt;p&gt;Something like that. Anyway, the point being, you may not be extraordinary in any one field, but it isn&amp;#x27;t too hard to achieve extraordinary things due to a combination of skills in multiple fields if you work at it.&lt;p&gt;[0] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;undertale.com&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;undertale.com&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cavestory.org&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cavestory.org&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>j45</author><text>An HR leader once shared with me: &amp;quot;Because every hire is a compromise between available candidates.. there is no perfect hire, and no two candidates are truly comparable.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s really an eye-opening statement for tech roles, and how formally taught and self-taught&amp;#x2F;transferred folks can work side by side successfully.&lt;p&gt;The unique thing about tech skills is there&amp;#x27;s more than one valid way to solve a problem or do something &amp;quot;right&amp;quot;.  It&amp;#x27;s hard to measure that.&lt;p&gt;Not even two CS majors who may be equivalently capable (in different ways) on the outset will be identical, nor will be the outcome of how they grow their strengths and capabilities.&lt;p&gt;I look forward to HR continuing to evolve better to understand technical roles and contributions as being beyond a binary yes&amp;#x2F;no measurement.&lt;p&gt;Current hiring practices continue not to extend well from a bricks and mortar approach to a abstracted online&amp;#x2F;digital measurement.&lt;p&gt;In the meantime... knowing how to leverage and communicate your skillet in a transferable way is really what&amp;#x27;s important.  There&amp;#x27;s no better way to do that than learning to write and communicate well, and better than others.</text></comment>