When do you become a Jack of all trades but a master of none?

The author says that a Jack of all trades is not necessarily a master of none. In their case, bioinformatics became the field they identify with, even though the work also requires sysadmin, backend development, and data analysis.

Reading notes

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• The author says they are far from being the greatest developer, sysadmin, or data analyst.
• They started as a chemist and ended up doing bioinformatics because they liked it.
• They learned computer science on their own because they believed things could be explained, modeled, and proved theoretically.
• They built their own algorithms and programs, then had to port them from command-line interfaces to GUIs or web tools for the scientific community.
• Their academic path went through chemical-biological sciences, microbiology, and genetics, all using computer science.
• They say bioinformatician is the term they would use for themselves without thinking.
• They describe bioinformatics as a specialty that still requires sysadmin, backend developer, and data analyst skills.
• They say some jobs require deep understanding of computer science and the ability to pick up any language as needed, in calm times or during a storm.