A couple of weeks ago, I had lunch with the development lead for VMware Fusion. \u00a0We’ve worked together before, so we know quite a lot of the same people. \u00a0During our conversation, we talked about what it takes to be a highly successful engineer, and he talked about the difference between the sage and the guru.<\/p>\n
In his opinion, the sage is the engineer with the deep technical knowledge about a specific domain. \u00a0That engineer knows absolutely everything about it, and has probably touched all of it at one point or another. \u00a0The guru, on the other hand, is the engineer with a broad swath of technical knowledge about many domains. \u00a0That engineer doesn’t know absolutely everything about a specific domain, but knows quite a lot about a lot of different domains, and is often able to draw connections between those domains. \u00a0To illustrate his point, he talked about two developers that we both know quite well. \u00a0One is a sage, one is a guru. \u00a0Both are very well-respected, and deservedly so. \u00a0I’d love to work with either of them again.<\/p>\n
Both the sage and the guru are valuable. \u00a0The sage can work magic in their domain. \u00a0The guru can solve difficult cross-domain problems that have stymied other engineers.<\/p>\n
I’ve been thinking a lot about this conversation lately. \u00a0How does it apply to me as a user experience researcher? \u00a0Do I want to be a sage or a guru? \u00a0How do others view me? \u00a0Is it possible to do both? \u00a0Is that even something that I would want? \u00a0I need to think more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A couple of weeks ago, I had lunch with the development lead for VMware Fusion. \u00a0We’ve worked together before, so we know quite a lot of the same people. \u00a0During our conversation, we talked about what it takes to be a highly successful engineer, and he talked about the difference between the sage and the … Continue reading the sage and the guru<\/span>