In the first part of this two-part blog post, I explained why I think most job ads today are rather pointless and are not particularly helpful in finding the people you need. Then I discussed some pointers that lead the way towards better criteria for job ads and mapped them against the typical job ad of today.

Sometimes I read through job ads and almost always they leave me a bit at a loss. They always ask in a checklist style for some traits and experiences that based on my experience are either rather pointless or not really essential. Or they ask for a very narrow hyper-specialized profile garnished with the usual “you should be team-minded” antidote which is even worse regarding today’s challenges.

In the previous post, we explored why we need to be a bit rebellious to take the road towards becoming a “full-range engineer”.

In the previous post, we discussed what it needs to become a “full-range engineer” and have seen that this is quite different from what software engineers often strive for today. However, the idea of a full-range engineer is focused on creating more value in a highly complex, uncertain and ambiguous environment and thus also improving our value.

In the previous post, we examined how the omnipresent hyper-specialization in IT pushes software engineers into areas of human weaknesses and how nerd culture (involuntarily) reinforces the push. We also collected a little list of ideas how we can position ourselves as software engineers, aligned with humans strengths, preserving our value as software engineers in the face of modern AI solutions.