My manager ruined a perfectly good beer at an open air brewery in Richmond by telling me the truth about my career. The advice aged better than the beer. Here's the T-shaped engineer pitch nobody gave you, and six prompts worth burning tokens on at the end.
The T-shaped engineer idea was first called out for me at an office happy hour, over beers at an open air brewery in Richmond. Careers came up, the way they do when engineers drink near their manager, and mine made a point I couldn't shake: depth alone doesn't carry you. The engineers who go furthest are deep in one thing, conversant in everything around it, and able to explain their work to anyone in the building.
I nodded, went home, and kept doing exactly what I was doing. Going deeper and calling it growth. It took me embarrassingly long to admit he was right.
The machine took the easy half
For years the deal was simple. Be great at the craft and the craft carries you.
