AI is the era of generalists

A lot of people are saying AI is the era of generalists. I partly agree, and here’s why.

In 2022 I joined an American company as a software engineer, working remotely from Brazil. That first year was brutal. Before that, I spent almost 5 years at a startup where I went from junior to partner. I was building pages with HTML, CSS and JavaScript, but I was also editing videos, doing design, writing copy, helping with the marketing, etc.

I learned so much about the startup world that it completely changed how I see life and work.

Early in my career, I regretted not going deeper into engineering. And look… Fundamentals still matter. I study them every day, even with AI.

But in my experience, knowing the product, the users and the business is what makes an engineer stand out.

So if your path wasn’t a straight line, maybe that’s your advantage. Like Steve Jobs said, you can’t connect the dots looking forward, only looking backwards.