"T"-shaped developers

What is a T-Shaped Developer?

The "T"-shaped developer is an agile term for a maker that has very broad knowledge and can help a team to get stuff done regardless of the task, yet has a very deep knowledge in a particular discipline, Non-agile projects and companies tend to pigeon-hole programmers and reward them on the depth of their knowledge of a particular subject. 

This creates fragility in an organization. When "that one programmer that knows that one thing and performs that one function" is no longer available, the project is stuck and cannot move forward. An agile company is filled with lots of T-shaped generalists than can work anywhere to get stuff done.

This is not a "Jack of all trades, master of none" it is a "Jack of all trades and master of one".

I was recently hired into a team as the "back-end guy" to do the "easy" work of building a business and service platform for a game. As a T-shaped developer, I had the opportunity to build an audio engine and provide music and sound to the game heading into the green-light for the game. I also took on UI and systems work for the game. There were not enough UI and Audio experts available to finish features, so I was quite happy to step in and do the work. If I only could contribute as "the back-end guy" on the team, I would have been twiddling my thumbs or worse. writing a ton of code apart from the game as busy work that might not fit with the vision for the game.

The Generalist Programmer role does not mesh well with production and administrative management, however. A generalist does not slot into a hiring plan or career model. They contribute everywhere and it is hard to judge their progress because they span such a broad spectrum of work required to ship a game. This is a shame, because promoting the generalist, T-Shaped developer unlocks and removes blocking tasks on a project.

As a Technical Director, engineering advocate and hiring manager, I desperately sought and promoted the generalist, much to the consternation of the rest of the organization. Programmers that wanted to switch and expand their roles are often treated as risks -- because in the short-term for a schedule, they might be less efficient and lack the experience and wisdom to get it right the first time. Taking the long view, moving programmers around meant the organization as a whole becomes much stronger. Those risks are easily mitigated by pairing neophytes up with the wizened grey-beards and running training courses. Sure, you lose an hour or two each week in training, but the project gains another expert that can help the business adapt to constantly changing requirements.

The T-Shaped developer on a team provides more value than can be quantified. They might do artwork, game AI, networking, build shaders, optimize a rendering pipeline or any number of specialized tasks that simply would never be completed when human beings are treated as specialists that can only perform a single function.

When building a Scum team, or a new business, go for the T-Shaped developers first. They can solve the surprise changes and complexity of creating something new when requirements drive developers out of their "expert" zone.