Alright, let's talk about something that's been bothering me for years. But first, let me "tedlassoing" a little, where I tell you a personal history that makes you relate to what will be discussed in the text:
A few years ago, I was hired to develop an ecommerce site for an agency, as a 3rd party developer. Being just someone who had to be physically there for REASONS, I couldn't exactly interact with the existing developers, but I could listen to some of the conversations between them and their manager. One of the devs had to create a huge project for a museum, but instead of focusing on what he needed to do, we spent most of the time searching for the perfect PHP framework: this is 0.1 seconds faster, this is easier to maintain, this has more functions, etc.
Turns out, the delivery day came and the code had nearly started: No responsiveness, no admin panel, code had more bugs than features, etc. I had to stop what I was doing and help, and at a certain point, we just decided to move everything to WordPress instead of reinventing the wheel.
The tech industry has a serious problem with chasing shiny objects. Most of the time, we're like toddlers in a toy store, grabbing at every new framework, language, or tool that appears, then tossing it aside for the next cool thing. And frankly, it's exhausting. Just check the dev homepage, everyone is crafting AI content trying to sell the "next big thing" that will make developing easier, faster, stronger.
But... think about it: how many JavaScript frameworks have been declared "the future" in the past decade? How many times have you heard "This will replace traditional programming" only to see that technology fade into obscurity? How many npm/python libraries have been widely used in the past and right now are abandoned (but still being used in production, without a way to maintain it)?
And, crazily enough, we keep falling for this behaviour, over and over again.
The Cult of New vs. The Art of Mastery
A few years ago, I watched a documentary called "Jiro Dreams of Sushi." If you haven't seen it, stop reading this right now, go watch it, and come back. Seriously, I'll wait. I believe it's available on Netflix.
Back? Good. So, Jiro Ono, this 85-year-old sushi master, has spent over 70 YEARS making sushi. Not exploring different cuisine types, not branching out into ramen or tempura or whatever else was trending in Tokyo's food scene.
Just sushi.
Every.
Single.
Day.
And you know what? His tiny restaurant in a subway station earned three Michelin stars. That's the cooking world's equivalent of creating the new Facebook or Tik Tok.
The Japanese have a word for this: shokunin. It's often translated as "craftsman" or "artisan," but it goes deeper than that. A shokunin isn't just someone with technical skills; it's someone with an attitude and social consciousness about their craft. They have a spiritual and material obligation to work at their absolute best for the welfare of others. It's the belief that if you devote yourself to what you do best, you will reach perfection someday. Or not. It doesn't matter, really.
The Tech Industry's Anti-Shokunin Problem
The tech industry is practically built on the opposite philosophy. We celebrate those who jump from one technology to the next. We worship at the altar of disruption. Our Linkedin profiles are stuffed with every buzzword and technology we've dabbled in, trying to cast the widest possible net.
But... what if we're doing it all wrong?
Let's look at some of the true giants in our field:
- Linus Torvalds has been working on the Linux kernel for over 30 years.
- Grace Hopper spent decades on the same programming languages and compilers.
- Guido van Rossum - The creator and "Benevolent Dictator for Life" of Python for over 30 years
- Brendan Eich - Created JavaScript in 10 days in 1995, but then spent decades refining it and working on browser technologies
- Larry Wall - Maintained and evolved Perl for over 30 years, staying committed to his creation
- Richard Stallman - Devoted his entire adult life to the GNU project and free software movement
These aren't people who chase every new trend. They're people who went deep instead of wide. They mastered their craft with the patience and dedication of a shokunin. To them, there's no "do better with a new tool every week", there's "do better".
The Very Real Cost of Tech FOMO
Coding is like cooking. As an amateur in the kitchen, I can confirm this. You need to understand what you doing and for what purpose. You need to prepare ingredients in advance. You need to think about the user restrictions when preparing the meal. Is your user allergic to something? Avoid this ingredient. Is your user disabled or colorblind? Avoid using some elements or colors while creating the front end.
And here is where things get even more complex. Imagine that every week you, instead of learning how to use the knife, buy a new knife. Instead of learning how to use salt and pepper, buy a different brand of spices. This constant jumping between technologies and tools isn't just exhausting—it has very real costs for you:
- Perpetual Beginner Syndrome — You don't progress beyond the basics in anything
- Shallow Solutions — You solve problems with surface-level understanding
- Technical Debt — Your projects become a patchwork of half-understood technologies that will bite you in the ass sooner or later
- Burnout — Constantly learning new things is mentally draining
- Imposter Syndrome — You feel like you're always behind, always catching up
And for what, exactly? So you can say you've "worked with" the latest framework that will be obsolete in 18 months?
The Path of the Tech Shokunin
I'm not saying you should never learn anything new. That would be ridiculous. But what if, and hear me out, because this may sound crazy, but trust me: what if, instead of trying to learn every new technology, you focused on mastering a core set of skills?
Here's what that might look like:
Choose Your Craft — Pick an area that genuinely excites you. Backend systems? Frontend experiences? Data science? Security?
Master the Fundamentals — Go deep on the underlying principles. If it's web development, truly understand HTTP, browser rendering, and JavaScript engines. Don't just rely on buzzwords, understand what is being created.
Embrace the Plateau — There will be times when you feel like you're not making progress. This is where most people jump to something new. Don't. Push through. The plateau is the place where you understand how much you need to prepare before reaching the top
Share Your Knowledge — Teaching forces you to solidify your understanding and exposes gaps.
For me, it was backend development and WordPress. I dove deep into PHP, databases, performance optimization, and system architecture. And you know what? Despite PHP being "uncool" for most of my career, the depth of knowledge has been more valuable than if I'd chased every trending language. WordPress is my breadwinner tool. Not because I think this is the best tool available, but because I understand how to use it.
Where being a Shokunin really shines
The beautiful thing about the shokunin approach is that true mastery gives you superpowers:
- You can solve problems others can't even identify
- You develop an intuition for your domain
- Your solutions are elegant, not just functional
- You understand the "why" behind the "how"
- You make fewer mistakes and recover from them faster
And perhaps most importantly: you build a reputation in your domain. Not a Linkedin reputation, that accepts anything without proof. Real reputation.
In a world of jacks-of-all-trades, the master of one becomes indispensable.
"But What About Staying Relevant?"
I can hear you now: "Bro, if I don't learn the latest technologies, I'll become obsolete. AI is coming and all I can hear and read is how it's going to be better than me 🥺"
Will you really become obsolete, though? Let's think about it.
The fundamentals of our field change much more slowly than the tools and frameworks. The principles of good software design, efficient algorithms, clean code, and user experience have remained relatively stable.
Someone who deeply understands these fundamentals can pick up new tools when needed because they understand the problems these tools are trying to solve. They don't learn React just to learn React; they learn it because they understand the problems it addresses in UI development.
Finding Your Shokunin Path
So how do you apply this to your career? Some ideas:
Identify what truly interests you — What technical problems make you lose track of time?
Go deep, not wide — Focus on becoming exceptional at one thing before branching out.
Be patient — Mastery takes time. Jiro has been making sushi for 70 years and still doesn't think he's achieved perfection.
Develop your own standards — Don't be satisfied with "good enough." Push yourself to improve bit by bit every day.
Find your community — Connect with others who share your passion for depth over breadth.
The Time to Choose is Now
Look, I get it. It's scary to commit to one path when there are so many options. It feels like you're closing doors.
But here's the truth: mastery opens more doors than it closes. The depth of your knowledge becomes your superpower, your unique value proposition in an industry full of surface-level expertise.
So, what's it going to be? Will you continue jumping from one technology to the next, forever chasing the newest shiny object? Or will you choose the path of the shokunin, committing to the patient, dedicated pursuit of mastery?
As for me, I'm with Jiro: "I'll continue to climb, trying to reach the top, but no one knows where the top is."
Now, what about we aim to leave a legacy of skill and a life of worth? What will you do today to inch closer to being the best in the world at what you do?
Top comments (7)
I understand your point but at least in Frontend world getting obsolete is a real thing. You need to run fast just to stay where you are, and ignoring some new framework can cost you years later on.
No one needs shokunin jQuery masters nowadays. (Well mb some legacy/wordpress sites still do, but no more or less modern company will hire you.)
Damn, even if you master lets say Vue you can forget applying to 9/10 React projects, even though most things are pretty similar.
And there are Angular or dunno Svelte.
HR/ATS screening doesnt care about your clean code, pattern understanding or vanilla js knowledge, most of the times you wont even get to the technical interview if you lack some particular tech tool experience.
Sticking to one thing is a dead end with no perspectives. Sure you will find some legacy projects, but you need to love that jQuery way too much to keep doing same 'sushi' until you die.
You are still thinking in a "framework mindset". You know how to do front-end, like REALLY know, learning the basics of react/vue/whatever is easy. It's not about legacy projects. It's about focusing on mastering the front-end before deciding which tool you will use.
Do you want to know enough to pass HR/ATS or do you need to know what you are doing?
At this point im more concerned about securing a job.
Lets imagine one needs 3 years to master frontend, before starting with react, then another 2 years to master react.
And there is another dev, who decided to go with react straight away, without deeply understanding how everything works.
At some point they start looking for a new job and here we have frontend guru with 2 years of react and a mediocre dev with 5 years of react but no deep understanding of frontend.
I bet our master will have hard time getting a non-entry level job because of all those devs with more react-years.
Yes, if they both get to the technical interview, and interviewer ask right questions - master may shine like a diamond, but chances are he wont even get there. As a result master will probably stick to (or better stuck in) one company with some legacy tech no one else understands anymore.
You are creating a lot of weird scenarios just to make an unnecessary point. If you are OK with learning a new framework every two weeks, go ahead
What's your point then?
All those people you mentioned in the post created NEW tech, which solved some existing problems, moreover probably solved better than other solutions if there were any. Now things evolve much faster, we dont have those 30 years to polish and improve single tool/framework.
If you are ok with
masteringgetting stuck with wordpress for 50 years, go on...Cool, bro
Great take 👏🏼