Yesterday I suggested that adopting the label of “fullstack” can limit your earning potential, and that specialization is usually a better approach. But how should you choose a specialty?

That’s naturally a really big topic, that I can’t address fully today, but I want to suggest a few dimensions to consider to get your mental gears turning. This is by no means a complete list. Specialization can take many forms. And likely, as your career advances, you’ll want to niche down further and further, likely specializing across two or more of the following dimensions.

• Tech stack. You could become a specialist in a specific language (Python, Rust, Kotlin), framework (React, Spring Boot), platform (Salesforce, WordPress) or tool (Kubernetes, PostgreSQL)
• Industry. Some like to specialize on an industry, such as FinTech, retail eCommerce, Blockchain, or Peer-to-Peer applications.
• Problem domain. You may choose to specialize along a problem domain, such as secure shopping carts, offline-first mobile apps, or big data analysis.
• Company size. This one is often overlooked, but shouldn’t be. Some prefer to work for large companies, some small. Different sizes of companies often face different types of problems, so becoming familiar with one size of company in some cases can give you a leg up on the competition when looking for a new job.
• Business model. Different business models sometimes have special needs. Do you like to work for companies in retail sales? SaaS? Travel booking? B2B, B2C? Two-sided-market places? Social non-profits?
• Customer demographics. If you like working on products used by end users, do you care who your end users are? Do you want to build tools for creatives? For children? Investors? Students?

Have you chosen a specialization, even just as an experiment? I’d love to hear from you. What dimension(s) do you specialize on?