Notes on range.

Short essays from building Range: how we read job postings, what generalist careers look like, and the language that helps other people see the pattern.

• How to set scope in a broad role

  Getting a broad role is the easy part. Nothing in it tells you when you're done, so it fills with whatever needs doing that week, and after a while none of the work has your name on it.

• How to explain a non-linear career path

  A non-linear career becomes easier to explain when you stop narrating every move and start showing the useful pattern that connects them.

• Best jobs for generalists

  The best job for a generalist is defined less by its title than by the decisions it owns, the functions it crosses, and the context it rewards.

• How to find your career through-line

  Your career through-line is the useful pattern underneath your job changes. You can find it by comparing the work people repeatedly trust you to do.

• Portfolio career vs. generalist career

  Portfolio describes how your work is arranged. Generalist describes the range you bring to it. They can overlap, but they solve different career questions.

• When should a generalist specialize?

  Specialize when a specific lack of depth is blocking work you want, not because a broad career looks untidy on paper.

• How to evaluate a cross-functional job offer

  A good cross-functional offer gives broad work a clear mandate. A bad one bundles unrelated tasks into a role with little authority or support.

• Reading the Chief of Staff boom

  Postings for the title doubled in a year. The growth is real, and it is also noisy: a hot title gets stapled onto very different jobs. Here is the read that tells them apart.

• How we read a job posting

  The board stays small on purpose. Every posting that reaches it gets read the same way, and most don't survive the read. Here is what that read actually checks.