Jelena Racković · · 3 min read · Teams & delivery
The universal soldier: domain knowledge plus range beats a narrow specialty
This is a sore subject for many people in our industry, and I understand why. For years we were told to specialise: pick a lane, become the best at one thing and let others handle the rest. Today, with smaller teams, tighter budgets and tools that change every month, that advice is starting to look fragile. I have never seen this question matter more than it does right now.
Why the narrow lane is narrowing
A designer who only does one thing, and does it beautifully, used to be a safe bet. In large teams with clear handoffs, there was always room for that. But teams are shrinking, projects move faster and many of the tasks that defined a narrow role can now be done, at least passably, with a tool. What remains valuable is the part no tool can do: understanding the domain, connecting the pieces and making judgement calls across disciplines.
That is where the universal soldier comes in. Not someone who knows a little about everything, but someone with deep knowledge of a field, such as public services, finance or media, and the range to move from research to interface, from interface to system and from system to the people who build it.
Domain knowledge is the anchor
Range without depth is just restlessness. What makes a generalist valuable is the domain underneath: knowing how a tax return actually flows, how an editor works on deadline or why a bank’s compliance team will reject a perfectly elegant screen. That knowledge takes years to build, and it changes every design decision for the better. It is also what clients trust most, because it means they don’t have to explain their world from scratch.
My own path ran from graphic design to web, from web to interfaces, from interfaces to systems, and from systems to leading teams and products. None of those steps replaced the one before. Each added range on top of the same foundation, and the foundation is what holds it together.
The trap: range that doesn’t scale
There is a darker side to this, and it is why the topic hurts. When companies discover that one person can do many things, they are tempted to let one person do everything. For a while it works. Then the project grows, the person is stretched across research, design, systems, handoff and client meetings at once, and quality starts to slip, quietly at first and then visibly. Not because the person lacks skill, but because nobody can give full attention to six things at the same time.
A universal soldier is not an army. Range is a strength in the early stages, in small teams and in moments that need someone to connect everything. As a product grows, it has to be matched by people who go deeper in particular areas. Knowing when to bring them in is as important as having the range in the first place.
Scaling it the right way
In my teams, I treat range as a way to see the whole and specialists as a way to go deep. The generalist sets the direction, connects the disciplines and spots problems early. The specialists take the parts that need sustained focus. Neither replaces the other, and a healthy team has both, in proportions that change as the product grows.
So yes, domain knowledge plus range beats a narrow specialty, especially today. But it only stays that way if the people who have it are allowed to use it well, not spread so thin that the very quality they bring is the first thing to go.
Is your design system starting to fade?
I’d like to hear about it →