About six years ago, I decided to become a "desingineer", by accident. Here's how it went down:
After getting a BS and M.Eng in Computer Science, everyone was pleased as punched to let me code for them. But I wanted to code and design interfaces as well. What a strange idea - a programmer also making the interfaces.
Well, it turned out no one would take me seriously unless I had designed interfaces in a professional environment before. I needed someone that would take a chance on me, to actually let me design their UIs while hiding me away in their software team. (I managed to find one job that would, and for that I'm forever grateful.)
Once I picked up some experience designing UIs, the top companies wouldn't would take me seriously until I had some formal design training and credentials. So, I went back for a degree in Interaction Design.
Once I finished my degree, the top companies wouldn't take me seriously until I shipped some code that had my own designs in it. So I did that for a while, in a few hybrid dev/designer positions.
Once I shipped my code, the top companies wouldn't take me seriously until I had shipped a design of my own creation that was also my own (so, owning the UI, UX, code and business strategy). So I got back into entrepreneurship (something I'd largely given up with my pure CS focus), and started creating and shipping my own designs.
Now, as an entrepreneur, interaction designer and computer scientist, the top companies won't take me seriously until I start shipping designs of my own creation that are also visually stunning. Working on it. :)
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Only now, six years later, do I realize that no one will ever take you seriously unless they can define you.
Programmers can be understood, and slotted. They have real, respected career paths. Designers can be understood, and slotted. They have real, respected career paths as well. Even Interaction Designers are slowly becoming understood.
Being a desingineer, while bringing me incredible amounts of joy, also feels absolutely terrible - because people are constantly coming along with ideas of what you can or should bring to an organization. The limits of the position are such unknowns, in fact, that sometimes people feel desingineers should be everything to everyone.
Sometimes that comes out of with a sense of greed - after all, it's on the desingineer to prove they shouldn't have to do all of those things, right? And, in fact, they feel entitled to everything. Early-stage startups are particularly bad about this, I've noticed - their "first designer hire" posts often forget that everyone starts somewhere. (Sorry, but it's true.)
But other times people simply misunderstand how long it takes to become good at each of the individual skill sets involved. And other times companies are still sorting out what skill sets their companies actually need in the same person.
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Is there anything we can do, as a community, to bring some clarity and definition to "desingineering" - so kids coming out of school don't have to go through what I have gone through? It's obvious that this is a position that companies need, but it's not one that will be treated with respect until its own practioners - a fair number of whom seem to be on HN - actively come together to help define it.
I think in general, being a generalist in any field puts a ceiling on your career path after a while. And like you said the ceiling is not so much about the generalist being mediocre at many things, its more about others getting confused about how you would be best moved up the career track. But the problem with the concept of a career track is that you are on a track defined by other people. I'd say the only way out is go your own way as you have - career tracks all eventually end somewhere. As a generalist you have a much broader perspective on how to create your own track and a much better vision as to what direction best suits you. I think probably the best way we can encourage up and coming tech generalists is to encourage them to get frustrated with the status quo and to become entrepreneurs. As a result hopefully the next generation of companies will have a deeper appreciation of the competitive advantage of multi-disciplined people.
Entrepreneurs that are engineers and don't have a designer as a cofounder have no choice but to become desingineers.
Generalists are considered to be mediocre (jack of all trades, master of none). I don't know why though - maybe it's because many developers calling themselves specialists in a domain are doing the same thing for 5-10 years in a row and it's scary when other people take a different path.
This helps with some of the big, important things. But running a company will present you with a dozen of design challenges. A month. You can't just deal with these all contractually.
Thats just the thing - while that worked for me working a bit at the forefront of this trend, this doesn't feel like a long term solution. Entrepreneurship != being a desingineer, as the market is clearly showing. A student / aspiring desingineer shouldn't feel forced to start a company too soon simply because we lack the structure to help support that student grow into our industry properly.
I don't think they're forced to start a company. The trick is defining yourself in a way that provides a clear example of your value to a company, and how exactly they can monetize that. That's difficult to do right now, for the reasons you described.
The reason that everyone thinks 'desingineers' should go into entrepreneurship is because of the tremendous advantage this gives them. Bigger companies are failing to capitalize on people with these skills. These same skills allow desingineers to produce higher quality work at a faster pace for a cheaper price then any other combination of programmer and/or designers. This naturally leads to a competitive advantage that can(should?) be capitalized on.
Being a designer-coder is not being a generalist, it's being a double expert. It's like being a ninja unicorn. Everybody wants one… Chris Dixon's original tweet is right.
In my experience, a designer-coder is always in demand and can name their price.
I started messing around in photoshop making paintings of websites and dreaming up ideas in high school. In college, I convinced a programmer to help me build one of my ideas, and he agreed on the condition that I had to code the front end HTML and CSS. So I learned how to do that and surprisingly enjoyed it.
Then I realized I could quit my job making websites for people, so I got even better at building and deploying static sites.
I started going to meetups and built more side projects and sites with friends and started to get more comfortable with Rails, JavaScript, Git, etc.
After college, I went to work for Olark (YC 09) and realized that I could be far more useful if I knew how to program. So I've been working hard to get better at the various languages and frameworks that comprise our stack. And I'm well on my way to becoming a desingineer.
This sounds very similar to my experience, just starting with design first and then delving into programming to gain more control over the finished product. I knew that this would be a great combination to have considering how frequently a product breaks down in the communication between programmers and designers.
However, right now I am debating which direction to go in since it has a mess trying to get anyone to take me seriously without being 100% designer or 100% programmer.
If people don't take you seriously, there are only two potential things at play:
1. You don't command respect (either in posture/body language, the way you communicate, your portfolio/lack thereof, some combination of the three)
2. You are trying to work with nimrods
If you don't personally command respect, you will never get respect, no matter what you do. Unless you shore up your body language, communication style, and portfolio.
If you're trying to work with nimrods, nothing will ever please them. There's nothing worse than an ignorant client who thinks he knows what it takes.
Sometimes it's a 1-2 punch with all factors, in which case you're screwed. Better work on your clients (charge more) and work on yourself (take improv training, fix your body posture, etc.).
As a desingineer (not a particularly amazing one), I love the freedom I have to create entire projects front to back on my own and have them look and work great. But I totally agree about the "slotting." If I do one or the either, I feel slighted. If I do both, but get paid the same as if I did one, I feel slighted. I think desingineers are meant to be on their own, not slotted into one or the other in a larger group.
Where did you study Interaction Design? I'm getting in a masters in it at CMU after getting an electrical engineering BS. The masters here is a great program.
It would be amiss to separate my own academic influences from my desire to return to school - there were a few Ph.D applications in there along the way :) It is also entirely possible that as someone interested in such theoretical things, my career has subconsciously drifted to a road less traveled.
Indeed, this post was not meant to be bitter - and I think I would do it again - but it was meant to point out that the longer we take to pin down a definition, the more out of control it will get. I have half a mind to start some sortof of "Desingineers Association" to help get this solidified, in much the same way the Interaction Designers Association was so crucial for solidifying that movement in the late 2000s. Thoughts on that would be appreciated.
Funny, I'm purely self-taught and have worked for little local cos as well as big ones such as Pepsi & Bear Stearns (as a consultant at $hundreds per hour). Never had any problems with the fact that I had zero "official" credentials whatsoever.
They all hired me for what I had already shown I could DO.
I even put on my resume "School of Hard Knocks" - back when I actually had a resume.
If I were you, I would wonder that the common thread is in your experiences.
You defined yourself - as a product of your experiences - and you sold yourself, brilliantly. That's cheating. ;)
But seriously, I'm more concerned with the student who is interested in doing both and is still unsure of their career, than in the competent professional like you or me. It is obvious that the field wants desingineers, more than self-teaching can produce - what can we do to encourage them, either at the educational or at the job title/industry level?
After getting a BS and M.Eng in Computer Science, everyone was pleased as punched to let me code for them. But I wanted to code and design interfaces as well. What a strange idea - a programmer also making the interfaces.
Well, it turned out no one would take me seriously unless I had designed interfaces in a professional environment before. I needed someone that would take a chance on me, to actually let me design their UIs while hiding me away in their software team. (I managed to find one job that would, and for that I'm forever grateful.)
Once I picked up some experience designing UIs, the top companies wouldn't would take me seriously until I had some formal design training and credentials. So, I went back for a degree in Interaction Design.
Once I finished my degree, the top companies wouldn't take me seriously until I shipped some code that had my own designs in it. So I did that for a while, in a few hybrid dev/designer positions.
Once I shipped my code, the top companies wouldn't take me seriously until I had shipped a design of my own creation that was also my own (so, owning the UI, UX, code and business strategy). So I got back into entrepreneurship (something I'd largely given up with my pure CS focus), and started creating and shipping my own designs.
Now, as an entrepreneur, interaction designer and computer scientist, the top companies won't take me seriously until I start shipping designs of my own creation that are also visually stunning. Working on it. :)
--------------------
Only now, six years later, do I realize that no one will ever take you seriously unless they can define you. Programmers can be understood, and slotted. They have real, respected career paths. Designers can be understood, and slotted. They have real, respected career paths as well. Even Interaction Designers are slowly becoming understood.
Being a desingineer, while bringing me incredible amounts of joy, also feels absolutely terrible - because people are constantly coming along with ideas of what you can or should bring to an organization. The limits of the position are such unknowns, in fact, that sometimes people feel desingineers should be everything to everyone.
Sometimes that comes out of with a sense of greed - after all, it's on the desingineer to prove they shouldn't have to do all of those things, right? And, in fact, they feel entitled to everything. Early-stage startups are particularly bad about this, I've noticed - their "first designer hire" posts often forget that everyone starts somewhere. (Sorry, but it's true.)
But other times people simply misunderstand how long it takes to become good at each of the individual skill sets involved. And other times companies are still sorting out what skill sets their companies actually need in the same person.
-------------------
Is there anything we can do, as a community, to bring some clarity and definition to "desingineering" - so kids coming out of school don't have to go through what I have gone through? It's obvious that this is a position that companies need, but it's not one that will be treated with respect until its own practioners - a fair number of whom seem to be on HN - actively come together to help define it.