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The Changing World of Work 3: "Full-Stack" Skills
Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog, (Part 1 and Part 2 here)
More important than being a full-stack employee is owning a full stack of skills.
My longtime friend G.F.B. sent me an article on the emerging value of tech-savvy generalists: The full-stack employee by Chris Messina:
Nearly two years after I left Google, I’m starting to understand what’s going on in the professional sphere. The conventional seams between disciplines are fraying, and the set of skills necessary to succeed are broader and more nebulous than they’ve been before. These days, you’ve gotta be a real polymath to get ahead; you’ve got to be a full-stack employee.
If you have a low tolerance (as I do) for breathless techno-buzzword dropping--worked at Google, UI, CSV file, Kickstarter, social apps, Vine, self-promotion, always-on connectedness, blah blah blah--you will have to shoulder through the techno-hip chatter.
(Is there no inoculation against peppering content with these cliches? If email is dead, please tell that to the 16,000 non-spam emails that pile up on my server every year.)
But the core point of the essay is worth examining: specialization is no longer enough outside of fields such as surgery. An increasing number of jobs now require working knowledge, or at least awareness, of cross-disciplinary advances.
Put another way: owning one skill is no longer enough. Virtually any skill that can be reduced to a procedure defined by a set of rules can be automated or offshored. Any skill with defined inputs and outputs can be commoditized: reduced to software or a set of procedures that can be performed anywhere in the world.
The only value creation model left for labor is to own the entire process of production. Depending on the industry or sector, this might include a variety of machining, 3D fabrication and injection-mold technologies, marketing, design and content creation, software development and sales--the combinations are almost endless depending on what processes are creating value.
As management guru Peter Drucker noted, enterprises don't have profits, they only have expenses. Creating value is what generates profits, and without profits enterprises can't pay employees, and government can't skim taxes from profits and wages.
Drucker foresaw that workers' knowledge (human capital) would become the primary means of production in a knowledge economy, a dynamic he described in his book Post-Capitalist Society.
What are the core skills everyone needs to own? In my book Get a Job, Build a Real Career and Defy a Bewildering Economy, I identify the Eight Essential Skills of Professionalism that are the foundational soft skills that enable the acquisition of specific hard skills within a sector or field.
The idea that a full stack of cross-disciplinary skills are what's valuable in an increasingly commoditized-labor world is the heart of what I have described as the emerging class of Mobile Creatives (as described in America's Nine Classes.)
More important than being a full-stack employee is owning a full stack of skills. Counting on Corporate America or the central state to employ everyone who wants to work is giving Corporate America and the central state way too much power over our individual destinies and the destiny of the nation. Opportunity is presented by life and the market for goods, services and ideas, not Corporate America and the central state.
Those pining for "good-paying middle class jobs" doing repetitive factory work or routine office data shuffling are looking backward to an era that is firmly in the past. Those who expect existing factory model educational structures to magically churn out students with a full stack of cross-disciplinary skills that create value are equally delusional.
Enterprises don't have profits, they only have expenses, and government funds its programs with taxes skimmed from the profits and payroll taxes of those creating value. Creating money out of thin air via Federal Reserve quantitative easing or Zimbabwe-style state printing presses is no substitute for creating value.
Opportunity, liberty and risk are not divisible. We either grasp the nettle of creating value or we devolve to wistful pining for what is irrevocably in the past
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It seems the only skill you need these days is figuring out how to live on some elses dime.
HAHAHA. That is true. Now where is my disability forms. I have stress from work and can't work any more.
It may seem that way, but every person I associate with that is on government assistance is embarrased by it and works many hours. The fed and government have fucked us so hard its mind blowing, it is literally slavery seems like.
You must only associate with Caucasian people.
Ya, that is accurate.
Ya, that is accurate.
Unfortunately, I think you are missing the point of the article. Either be born to rich parents, invent something revolutionary or get a skill set which will give you employment. All others are screwed and US living standards for other than the above are going way down.....Like it or not, The American dream is over.
And yet material standards of living of these left-out "others" today are objectively many times higher than in any time in history. Bitching about their condition relative to the condition of other in this fantastically rich society is Marxist shit stirring. Thats why the left is all about "inequality" and inadvertently or not, the levelling out of incentives that drive people to learn grow innovate and produce better goods and services in ever more productive fashion. Dont fall for it.
The way I read this, to get ahead you need a...
Sack full of Shills.
Opportunity, liberty, and risk have been destroyed by money printing and corrupt cronyism.
Why should I bust my ass to work for empty money and an oppressive debt serfdom kletpoligarchy?
Tear the whole fucking thing down.
And our education system is failing our children magnificently.
What education system?
You mean the brainwashing and indoctrination system that is designed to churn out robotic sycophants with zero critical thinking skills?
I work in IT now, but i used to weld. You would be surprised how many young people can't even get something squared up, let alone welded together. If they can do this, they don't show up for work 1/2 the time. Fuck paper pushing, I knew when i was fucking 10 that it would become extinct.
I work in IT now, but i used to weld. You would be surprised how many young people can't even get something squared up, let alone welded together. If they can do this, they don't show up for work 1/2 the time. Fuck paper pushing, I knew when i was fucking 10 that it would become extinct.
"Full stack employee", newspeak for wear all the hats, get paid for wearing only one.
Saw through that nonsense long ago.
It is the opposite of C-level, newspeak for wear one hat, get paid for wearing them all.
Correct. But to "wear them all", you first have to have them.
Kirk leveraged his Hats to become a 'Technopreneur': The Principal (owner) of an engineering services LLC.
I did similarly, then found I didn't want to deal with finding trustworthy, knowledgeable, reliable employees and subcontractors who weren't prima donnas or drug abusers. Not to mention gubmint regs, insurances, taxes, etc. All while working seven days a week most of the time.
Shut the company down, sold all the equipment, started consulting business with me, myself and I.
I would never hire employees or subcontractors ever again. It is as a learning experience, but one I'm glad is in my rearview mirror.
"Mobile creative" is just a way to rationalize having a metric ton of useful skills and still being poor.
"Mobile creative" is just a way to rationalize having a metric ton of useful skills and still being poor.
Meet the stupids. You people have no balls, no vision. Still punching the clock for the masters, yet still too righteous to break the rules like they do. You have to free yourselves from the rules written, but not followed by the masters of the game. I'm a mobile creative, and with the help of the deep web, I'm making mid six and getting to travel and party more than I ever dreamed I would. For those of you who are too afraid to break the "law" (I'm talking about nonviolent, victimless crimes here) in order to thrive, you have EARNED your subjugation. "He who would sacrifice liberty for security, deserves neither", or something to that effect.
Grats on your well-paying child porn enterprise, I guess.
are you the under worlds equivilent of ken griffin and citadel..front running all the bitcoin exchanges..?
I am always looking for a good cook. If you got skills then you better call Saul. Saul gets 15% of your wages.
Saul gets 30% if you're a citizen, 60% if you're an H-1B.
What kind of job skills does it take to run over a despondent suicidal man pointing a gun at himself in broad daylight?
Good driving skills or just years of steroids, pills, and alcohol?
Might also take some balls to do that
might also take many years of playing Grand Theft Auto....
I knew that brain training would come back to bite the culture in the ass someday
'Since Lehman', I've found 'work' is all about finding some sucker dumb enough to do 10 people's jobs and get paid a paupers wage.
+1000
....or, conversely, to stand around like some kind of semi-vascular, semi-sentient, loss prevention unit (think CVS, Radio Shack, Sears employees....while you can)
The creative integration and synthesis of knowledge from diverse disciplines to craft unique and unorthodox solutions to problems is the mark of genius. Is the author suggesting that the flock turn geniuses and learn to think?
The more that people babble on with techno-jargon and try to sell themselves as connected, multi-tasking folks, the more it becomes clear to me they are bullshitters who would prefer to talk rather than actually get things done. Likewise, multitasking means "on the internet, doing a shitty job at everything else" and "failing to actually communicate."
Jack of all trades, master of nothing. Good luck with that. Is great advice for slaves.
How about the focus being on attitude? This is where it is at.
Adaptability is a another key attribute. But, that stems first from attitude.
The industrial revolution in UK made possible a gigantic population explosion and the concentration of that population in the cities.
It also made possible a nightmare life which would be unrecognizable to our ancestors and fellow creatures and is as far from natural and wholesome as possible. Unsustainable. Our support system will be destroyed.
Indefinite growth is persued as the only doctrine despite being patently absurd.
We see signs of incipient madness around us every hour with acts of insanity and violence from our leaders and their establishment.
Aside from that, I am pretty optimistic.
+1. And those who do not give in to the madness are deemed mad, by the mad.
To Boubou and centerline- First of all, thanks for thinking. Seems not many are doing that these days.
Seems to me that Charles Lutwidge Dodgson's (aka: Lewis Carroll) Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is in fact where we're at.
Or maybe we're in Oz.
Or maybe it's The Hunger Games.
Maybe it's all three at once. Anyways, these things are presented as children's books- when in fact, they reflect reality as it actually is.
Deemed mad by the mad sums it up pretty well.
Life is becoming unbearable for anyone who can see through the BS, whether economy, foreign affairs, election charades. Every news item is pure pain. Every public statement a masterpiece of hypocrisy.
I now see the wisdom in the old saying :"Ignorance is bliss" but once you've lost it, it never comes back.
And to think, I thought my Ol' Man was crazy for yelling at the TV. I don't yell at the TV anymore- I don't watch it at all.
how the FUCK DID THIS BULLSHIT ARTICLE GET ON ZEROHEDGE?
I EXPECT THIS crap ON THE OP-ED SECTION OF THE NY TIMES WHICH I WOULD NEVER READ......
How? cuz "read my book Get a Job, Build a Real Career and Defy a Bewildering Economy"
full stack employee = one person doing the job of 3-4 people. in silicon valley they call these people "10x engineers"
to "employed" of tomorrow are scientists who have expert programming skills along with the knowledge to be DBAs and subject matter experts of their own business.
fuck this shit.
starve the beast, go galt.
"Put another way: owning one skill is no longer enough."
As far as I know, it's been like that in IT for 30 years now. And it just gets exponential.
Last Sunday morning there was a segment on T.V. about a startup company in Detroit that manufactures high-end consumer products, including bicycles and watches. Obviously the abundance of cheap labor in the area now plays into the economics of this businesses venture. Interestingly enough, when they interviewed the CEO about his strategy and philosophy he said something like (paraphrased), “I’m not here for Detroit, Detroit is here for me”.
I felt encouraged by this story, until they interviewed one of the workers, whose job description was “Watch-Hand Setter”. That’s right, her job is setting hands on watches. Then I thought to myself, twelve years of government managed education, access to more information in the world than people in any other nation, and your most valued accomplishment is learning to set hands on watches. Then I got depressed.
you forgot "Richest Hyperpower in the history of the Human Race™!"
The issue with multi-talented employees is they are a threat to the leaders of the silos in organizations because they can see across the organization. 10 years ago I was told by a psychopath that ran my department that I better specialize on one skill or I would be gone. I'm still here and I have picked up at least 5 more skills.
Of every $100.00 the US spends on education, it spends $.02 on the education of gifted children, those kids with a high IQs who should be nurtured as the people who can contribute mightily to our society...Very sad, indeed...
...and if they figure out that you are capable of reason, independent thinking, or God forbid you voice your own opinion- you will not be encouraged, you will be mocked and shunned.
I disagree, that wheel will swing around too and the Reasoners will be "necessary" again ("idiocracy")
Sadly, it seems as if the reasoners will only become necessary again after most of the population is dead.
The number one skill needed is the ability to seek and find government cash.
Those people working at McDs and Wally's, are the ones in the "middle class," if they have a couple of kids. Life by the ass. Free texts, free meals, free docs and happy/fat pills, free school, free clothes, free rent. It is GOOD, and more profitable, to work less and get more free stuff.
The middle class can't afford to be there anymore, especially when their less ambitious, less intelligent, friends live better on part-time, non-thinking, low paid work.
Puh-lease, there are SO - comparatively - few of these changing world jobs available here, well, for us. I hear we are going to increase worker visas again, because they can afford to live on $20k a year.
Yes, the top of the top and most connected, maybe a few with over-the-top-perserverance, will find these jobs, but the vast majority will never be so lucky.
While I respect some of Mr. Hugh-Smith's opinions, here he remains firmly mentally stuck in the fantasy the globalists created.
Without a solid middle class that lifts up us ALL, how long are these "full-stack" jobs going to be around?
Fewer customers rarely equates to more profits and more employees. Well, more employees here.
Pipe dreams being squashed under cheap socks, law suits, regulations, mandates, hidden inflation and taxes continue to combine and grow and strip us to the bone.
Wake up, these jobs are temporary and without a booming customer class that can afford ever-increasing entertainment expenses, they aren't going to be in any quantity for long. Why can't we SEE dotcom/Y2K 2.0 (now cloudcom/Security/War) is building and non-profitable companies will never be worth the money they are currently valued at.
Mmmmmm... Pancakes.
A lot of full-stack employees work at I-HOP.
Or Hooters.
Full Stack Skills:
Ok kiddies: Let me translate that into English:
It means that unless you are mentally and educationally in the top 10 percent or better of humanity, there will be nothing but cr*p jobs for you....at least until the cr*p jobs are automated out of existence.
Ordinary adults were ordinary kids and average, so-so students going to the Govt schools which is what we have, for most part, as their education. Which too often is focused on idealogical indoctrination for benefit of the political elite rather than the benefit of the kids.
So they graduate as average ability and intellect people who not only lack the education and experience to be a Full Stack Skills worker, but lacking the apex mental processing and memory capacity, they can never become such.
For instance, my memory sucks and has always sucked. I would have to read something ten times to retain the info someone else could in one read. Poor memory demands additional time to learn new skill sets. Like the blind man who compensates by learning to listen better, I compensated for bad memory via increased analysis ability and became such. So compensated by focusing on my strengths, but I also had to become more of a specialist. A Full Stack type has to have great mental and memory ability. How many do? Not the average person.
So what the author is saying, is that there will be no jobs or only cr*p jobs for the majority of folks....at least those jobs that have not been sent to low wage countries, so MegaCorp can make more money. BTW, making more money is a good thing. But MegaCorp needs to remember that ordinary people need jobs so they can buy MegaCorp's products...
On the other hand, high unemployment is a boon to Govt military recruitment. Much easier to recruit cannon fodder from populations with high unemployment and financial desperation.
DK
Some guy just going to get on TV and be like, look in order for this whole thing to work at least two-thirds of you need to just go to the beach and walk into the ocean. There is only so much chicken and freshwater left. If you’re not in that upper third just be honest with yourselves, you know, they should have auditions. Whatever you do you got audition to still be here, right? You’re a plumber; fix that sink better than 70% of the other fuckers and that’s it, put some wrenches in your pocket, go to the beach and out you go.
- Bill Burr
I'm with most here, CHS has completely blown this one.
In IT, the "full stack skills" is how stuff used to be before the web, say before 1998, a competent guy should be able to do it all, at least all on a PC, I've never seen a mainframe guy "do it all" both platform and application. But the early web-age stuff was so ugly you had to specialize, so it took a team to get any corporate stuff done. So, have things settled down now so we can go back to those halcyon days? Does NOT seem that way to me. Yet that's the trend in IT hiring now. Don't even get me started on "devops".
OK, what about out in the real world, does "full stack" mean anything? No. It's what everyone here has already said, employers want one guy to do everything, like "Jack of all trades master of none" has suddenly been repealed. Well, but here's the thing, maybe it has been repealed, by Siri, by Google, by Da Internet. I had a high-powered business consultant type tell me this like five years ago now: "We don't expect the new MBA grads to know anything except how to use Google".
There's your full stack, folks.
What it is, is ALL labor has been commoditized, expertise is not valued. The group mind has all expertise, the individual none. And so the individual has no organizational or financial power, either, *deserves* none.
We want a full-stack basketball player so we can pare the team size down to one.
What works for me is being able to do the things necessary for civilization:
Mechanical-AC, Plumbing and Electrical.
People will defenitely open their wallets to keep these things going no matter what.
Gee, has that much time passed already that I have to roll this out again?
www.dack.com
Web economy Bullshit Generator.
'Click' to make Bullshit.
Yet, one could say that in a way, Full Stack Skills or at least a version of such does happen at organizations that downsize.
When downsizing of staff is done, even via attrition, what the survivors get, is the job tasks that the departed had.
Whether they want such or have time or ability for such.
Kind of a case of "splat"...there you go...Joe is gone so we have to divide up his projects and that pile is your share.
BTW, don't let it interfere with your projects, but do get Joe's stuff done on time. (mgt)
absolutely,,, and the first to go are the useless paper pushers. Then as numbers dwindle all the papers like building blueprints, equipment layouts, receipts, tools and what have you are found stuffed in a drawer somewhere never to be found. Can't tell you the number of times 'engineers' have come looking for precious info. When they go to the stuffed drawer they just cringe, look at me and ask, Are you serious? LOL.
Well the corporations have found a way around that. They just throw the equipment in anywhere it fits.
Yep,,, a serious improvement over yesteryear! But hey,,, It's CHEAPER.
Yep, productivity...good for them, not so good for you.
Apparently he forgot to mention the ninth essential skill in today's society.... selling useless books to the suffering mundanes which he seems pretty good at.
He is right about one thing though... The new and improved corporation wants their employees to do it ALL. No training, not even familiarization. And if you screw it up,,, Fired! or at least time off.
Skills of today are not the same as skills of yesteryear. Whereas yesteryear people with skills designed, built and repaired, today you must be adept at using iThingy's. In the past a manager would tell you what needed done and you would go out and get it done. Today 30-40% of my time is in front of a terminal trying to either get a job, or close one, or trying to figure out how the damn thing works. And if the system breaks,,, well you just wait. Yesteryear they would freak out. Today they don't even get upset. It's okay for Mr. digital to fail, not okay for Mr. Human to fail.
From what I can discern,,, anything done with computers or anything digital is today considered the height of efficiency... period. Yesteryear one wasn't allowed to make phone calls except for business or emergencies... Fast forward to today where you won't get hired unless you have a cell phone. Many businesses today will give you one so they can call or text you every ten minutes to question your progress.... and track you.
Oh, the marvels of Mr. Digital. Yesteryear if someone asked how many yards of concrete it would take to do a job the business owner would do the calculations in his head and give you a close estimate. Today's educated business man will quickly whip out his iThingy and calculate,,, with nary an idea of the math involved.
Skill set? Hmmmmm let me check my iWatch.
Embrace the suck get a government job.
If you have real world skills getting out of the US might be the best option. Go some place where they actually make things. The values in this country are all jacked up.
I am that full stack guy and the pay sucks. If they are willing to pay me good money its a temp gig killing 900lb gorrillas. Then a pink slip and they will talk smack if you give them as a refferance. Every Porshee shop I worked at and used as a ref did that. Then they call back when they find another gorrilla. One tried to rehire me for way less than before. They guy actually thought I would jump on it.
We need to start job shopping and ask for real money or take a pass. I been looking and am employed. The interviews are funny. They dont want to talk about money. Even tho they do want me to join their team. Asking me when can start without setting a price? One place tested me on their 900lb issue it was a five minute problem I thought no sweat. Pif poof pow they did not need my services any more. Turns out they only needed one broken bolt removed.
As a real American with skills it really sucks that the best jobs around are out of the country. The best three offers were all outside of the US. Doin RTOs in China is starting to look pretty good. Setting up production systems in the DR or an interesting deal in Coasta Rica. All we are building here are weapons.
Engineering degrees. Just not environmental (no real tangible value). In a world of bad data and people that regurgitate what the last guy said, an engineer that can spot BS data, communicate data, perform engineering economic analysis, and prove mechanical or construction concepts is of great value. Learn math/physics, learn a trade, or own a business. These are the paths legit to success. You can of course take a shot at politics or finance, but I prefer to maintain the skills that will be in demand no matter what the political or economic climate.
Sorry dude, I disagree.
All of these things are commoditized and outsourced, especially engineers. Most big corps view engineers as a cost, not an asset unless you work at a place like Google or Facebook (software devs)
Owning a business is tough these days thanks to regulations and communism.
They (TPTB) are doing this on purpose so they can get more people on the dole so they can stay in power.