I currently work in South East Asia, where the people around me are predominantly Asian. There’s a cultural stigma that seems to glorify traditional roles as they go - technicians, engineers, people managers, salespeople, big bosses. It helps to keep things simple and straightforward, but can get in the way of improvements, sometimes.
There aren’t many “custom” job roles, here. If any, they’re not the norm, and it would be difficult to find people with specialized skills - particularly because people don’t want to specialize.
Usability engineering is one such role. The demand for usability engineers in the country where I work is close to none. This is a stark comparison to the West. But my point isn’t about usability. It’s about its departure from “traditional” jobs such as software development or technical support, and that some jobs (and increasingly more jobs) are better suited for some people than others.
Being an INTP, my role as an engineer seems to fit like a glove. I’ve managed to bring benefit to the company by leveraging on my strengths. But I wonder how many people find themselves doing something that doesn’t quite match up.
Penelope Trunk thinks that it’s not about doing what you love, but doing what you are, that’s important. And she’s right - love can be temporary. It’s much better to do things that are a natural fit for you.
It doesn’t help that some jobs pay much more than others, either. Just because CEOs have high salaries doesn’t mean that I should strive to be one. There’s much more to a job than the salary, and I’m a firm believer that it would be increasingly difficult to advance if choices were made based on what jobs we wanted to climb up to, for money’s sake.
I do observe, however, that companies are more willing to explore new job roles these days, and are willing to allow employees to introduce improvements and ease into specializations that will benefit the company in the long run. This means that it’s possible for someone to carve out a niche role - and be rewarded for it.
This can especially happen to people who do a lot of pioneering work. I wouldn’t discourage anyone from taking the initiative to do something different and beneficial for the company - even if it’s potentially out of the job scope.
Specialization is a good thing to have these days.
