Breadth and Depth

I am often asked for career advice. One of the things software engineers always want to know is if they should learn some new tool or language. In fact, I cannot think of a performance review I have read for a software developer that didn't include something about growing their skills around a particular technology. That is the nature of our work: It is constantly changing. You have to keep learning, or you will become obsolete. But for your career, is it better to go wide and learn a lot of different things, or is it better to go deep and learn a few things really well? Making the case for going deep. Recently, I was talking to another engineering leader about hiring and staffing. I asked which technologies he wanted. © 2017 ACM.