Stop trying to be the best at one thing. Do skill-stacking and become a T-shaped developer instead

Most engineers stall as generalists or specialists. Learn why the T-shaped skill stack is the career growth solution top tech companies reward.

Aug 31, 2025

Most engineers fall into the trap of choosing between:

A generalist who knows a little about everything but often lacks credibility when it matters.
A specialist who goes deep but gets stuck in a narrow lane and struggles when facing broader challenges.

The generalist is unnoticed. The Technology specialist is someone hard to work with.

Both paths seem logical, but neither leads to fast or sustained career growth.

The reality is that tech companies reward engineers who can do both. They want people who can go deep in one area while also seeing the bigger picture across teams, systems, and business priorities. That combination is what makes you trusted, influential, and promotable.

The T-shaped developer model captures this balance perfectly. It is what people like Alex Hormozi call skill stacking: your value comes not just from depth but from the intersection of skills.

The T-shaped dev excels technically, but also can collaborate with managers, PMs, leadership, and any other role.

Think of it like an RPG. If you max out one stat, you are overpowered in one fight but useless in others. If you spread your stats evenly, you never unlock advanced abilities. The T-shape is the winning build.

⭐ In this post, you'll learn

Why being a pure generalist or pure specialist caps your growth
How T-shaped engineers create unique career leverage
Practical steps to deepen your expertise and broaden your scope
How to apply skill stacking daily in your work

There's a gray area in between

Most devs think they need to pick a lane. Be a generalist who adapts to everything, or a specialist who dominates one niche. But both are limited strategies.

Generalists may be useful in small companies, but in big organizations, they quickly hit a ceiling. They lack the authority to solve the hardest problems. Specialists, on the other hand, are respected for their expertise, but they are blind to opportunities outside their niche.

There are high-level engineers who are specialists. But let's be honest, I don't think I'm the best at anything, and you should do the same. Trying to be the best isn't the best strategy because no matter how many people try, only 1 succeeds and the rest lose.

The leadership specialist (non-tech leadership) will be perceived as the angry boss who only cares about the numbers

I noticed this myself when contributing to a document outside my scope. I would contribute with the knowledge from my team building cloud services, and I would bring the learnings from reviewing this firmware document to my team. That contribution made me more valuable than if I had stayed locked into my own lane.

You have to adapt depending on the context

If you put all your points into Coding Depth, you crush certain tasks but get destroyed in the rest of the software engineering work. If you spread points evenly, you never do anything noticeable. These extremes look safe, but both lock you into mediocrity.

Think about the AI trend nowadays. Very few of us were close to AI, but those who add a new AI skill to their character and put some points there to learn quickly will be more valuable than those who stay stuck in the old ways.

Many companies hire based on who can do the job right now. But none of us knows what software engineering will look like in 5 or 10 years. If I have to hire, I'd look into how people have adapted because they are a safer choice than someone too rigid.

The product specialist (PM) will never communicate well with engineers, but needs them to bring their requirements to life.

It's also safer when you have "a software engineer" instead of a "Java backend developer". Sure, that specialist may be the best engineer writing Java, but your company could be suffering from a lack of engineers in the frontend, and there's more value in someone who can always work where there's a bottleneck instead of someone who stays in their own lane.

How to apply skill-stacking to our careers

Skill stacking is a powerful concept. For example, a writer can write a book or scripts for TV and movies. A writer who also knows audio and video production can become a YouTuber. If that same person adds marketing skills, they can not only produce content for themselves but also offer services for others, creating a unique and highly valuable combination.

Now back to software engineering and the T-shaped developer.

The vertical bar of the T is depth. Mastering one domain gives you credibility. You become the go-to person when systems break or decisions must be made. Depth is what earns you respect from peers and leaders.

The horizontal bar is breadth. Knowing how systems interact, how business goals drive projects, and how communication shapes outcomes makes you adaptable. You can foresee dependencies, spot risks, and unblock teams. That is the skill set that turns you from a strong coder into a force multiplier.

Skill stacking compounds. Being top 20–30% in multiple areas while being world-class in one makes you far rarer than someone who is great in one and clueless in the rest. When I broadened my knowledge of AWS and AI tools, I onboarded to new projects faster than others. That speed came from skill stacking, not raw coding ability.

The communication specialist could be seen as a manipulator who always convinces people with words because they can’t speak their language

In FAANG companies, this is exactly what separates great engineers from the rest. To grow and get promoted, you have to broaden your influence and cross-team impact. T-shaped engineers are the ones who make org-wide progress, not just local commits.

How to build your T-shaped skill stack

Depth comes first. Master your core language, frameworks, and system design. When I joined Amazon, I saw myself weak at writing Java code. I doubled down on Java fundamentals, and higher-level tasks became easier because I could think at the right level of abstraction. That depth pays dividends every day.

Breadth is built deliberately. I started reading docs outside my immediate scope and found myself pointing my team to the right people when nobody else knew where to go. That habit turned me into someone valuable beyond my code. Even boring trainings and processes around operational excelence positioned me as a key player when compliance questions came up.

Daily application is where it compounds. I review documents outside my tasks, attend reviews for projects I am not on, and use AI tools to offload repetitive work. That freed up time for broader exploration and cross-team projects. You aren't better the day you receive a promotion, but every day when you keep pushing your limits.

The videogame analogy applies again. You can spend hours leveling up to max your specialization or add new supporting skills. The winning build is not spreading thin or going all-in on one stat. It is maxing depth in one area while stacking breadth around it.

🎯 Conclusion

Generalists are flexible but shallow. Specialists are deep but blind. Both cap their careers earlier than they expected.

T-shaped engineers combine the two. They bring depth in one area, breadth across systems, and influence that multiplies their impact. In large companies, this is the unfair advantage. It is what makes you indispensable and promotable.

Career growth is not about grinding a single stat or distributing them randomly. It is about building the T-shaped build that unlocks hidden levels and rare rewards. The path is clear: go deep, go broad, and stack your skills. That is how you create exponential growth.