Code call: there is a growing demand for multifunctional employees in IT
Every third IT company is now looking for generalist employees, specialists with a wide range of professional knowledge and skills, industry representatives told Izvestia. Teams with a large number of such employees on staff demonstrate a faster product development rate and a high rate of user satisfaction, they note. About the current structure of hiring IT specialists and who is in particular demand — in the material of Izvestia.
Who are IT companies looking for?
More than a third of companies prefer generalists, specialists with a wide range of professional competence, when hiring IT specialists, and another 52% consider them on a par with narrow specialists. These are the data from a study by IT companies Servicepipe and Speakatel, who studied the demand for employees in the industry.
"Unlike narrow-profile experts, generalists have knowledge in several functional areas and are able to combine engineering, product, business and user tasks," the authors note.
Generalists are employees with strong expertise in at least one area (for example, development, product, analytics) and relevant experience in related fields, such as an engineer with experience in user interface design or a product with a technical background.
"Teams with a large number of generalists on staff demonstrate 48% faster minimum viable product (MV) development and 27% higher user satisfaction rate (NPS)," the study notes.
Such specialists include, for example, a product manager, an employee who combines an understanding of strategy and technological aspects, as well as a chief of staff, whose task is to communicate and connect the CEO, top management and the entire organization.
"Increasingly, it is the generalist who is becoming the link between the development teams and top management. It does not replace experts, but makes their work more consistent," said Nikolai Ozivsky, Head of Servicepipe's Partner Relations Department.
At the same time, there are candidates on the market who position themselves as generalists and are not, complained Evgeny Pudovkin, technical director of Speakatel.
"People with superficial knowledge and lack of focus try to present themselves as generalists, but in fact these specialists have broad expertise in one area and have a broad outlook in related areas," he said.
Professions at the junction of different fields of knowledge are really in demand now, the press service of the Superjob recruitment service confirmed.
"For example, a product manager should have a good technical background, know modern project management methods, business processes in the subject area, and it would also be nice if he had an analytical mindset and knowledge of psychology," they said. — Cross-functional specialists will be in demand, because, understanding the specifics of the work of related teams, they work more efficiently."
However, narrow experts remain critically important in areas that require deep technical knowledge, such as artificial intelligence development, cybersecurity, cloud computing, and data science, the company noted.
"Thus, there are two multidirectional demand scenarios in the labor market: for generalists in small projects with a high degree of automation, for experts in technically complex, high—tech and large projects," Superjob said. — Today, it is important for an applicant to adequately assess their strengths — an expert or a generalist — and choose the appropriate niches and companies."
As reported in the recruitment service hh.ru Specialized specialists are still in high demand, and the demand for development and administration skills is also growing. So, if the median proposed salary for IT vacancies in Russia was 90 thousand rubles (an increase of 13% over the year), then the owner of a certain practical skill can receive several times more.
For example, from January to September 2025, employers most often looked for specialists with knowledge of SQL (structured query language), Linux operating system, Python programming language, PostgreSQL data management system and Git version control system. And for these vacancies, the maximum salaries have already been announced from 111 thousand rubles to 336 thousand rubles per month.
Why are they looking for generalists
The trend towards hiring generalists in IT reflects an interesting paradox of the modern market, said Alexander Gavrilov, Professor of the Department of Infocognitive Technologies at Moscow Polytechnic University.
"The more complex technologies become, the more companies need people who can speak different languages: with developers about the code, with managers about KPIs, with users about problems," he explained to Izvestia. — The customer asks to "do as they have, only better." A highly specialized programmer will start writing code, a system analyst will start drafting technical specifications, and a UX designer will start drawing the interface. And the generalist will first find out what exactly the customer considers "better" and why he needs it.
According to the expert, now startups cannot afford to support 10 narrow specialists — they need one person who will close several areas. Large companies understand that projects often fail due to poor communication between departments.
— And in the era of artificial intelligence, the situation is becoming even more interesting. AI can write code, analyze data, even generate a design. But he can't figure out if the customer needs it or how it will fit into the business processes," said Alexander Gavrilov. — The main skill is the ability to quickly adjust your thinking to new tasks — today you understand blockchain, tomorrow you understand neural networks, and the day after tomorrow you understand quantum computing.
Therefore, he noted, students should explore related fields not for show, but to understand the logic of colleagues: it is useful for a programmer to know the basics of marketing — not to sell, but to understand what data marketers need, and an analyst should understand development — not to write code, but to set realistic goals.
Tatiana Podolskaya, an expert at the Presidential Academy (RANEPA), confirmed that in an environment where 85% of IT specialists in the world use neural networks to develop software products, in-demand personnel with a broader profile than just programming skills are needed.
"The correct formulation of an AI prompt as a request to create a program or application should include, in particular, user—friendliness requirements, limitations on the material resources used and their capabilities, and much more," she said. — In addition to knowledge, you need the so-called familiarity in the field of IT solutions, which is provided by familiarity with implemented high-quality projects, constant study of best practices and teamwork with experienced developers.
The practice of working with industrial partners shows, first of all, a growing demand for graduates to immediately begin performing "combat" tasks, said Sergey Mishurov, professor of the Department of Engineering Cybernetics at MISIS University.
"To do this, in particular, a specialist must have a good understanding of the context in which the task is being solved: team interaction, requirements for the system being developed, and the like," he said. — A significant skill here is the ability to independently complete the understanding of all the circumstances of the task being performed, since the details are usually not explicitly formulated.
In addition, a good generalist must have a well-developed cultural outlook.
— It's not about prestige or intelligence. Literature, history, and art provide an understanding of human nature, and hence user behavior," said Alexander Gavrilov.
When developing an application for pensioners, knowledge of their life experience is more important than technical skills, when working with international projects, understanding cultural differences helps to avoid localization failures, the expert noted.
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