Labeling myself

So what do you do?

Whenever I've been asked that question, I've always been a little thrown off. I've never had a good answer for it. What do I do?

It's always been a little unclear to me since I've had a hard time labeling myself. I know what I enjoy doing, I know what gives me excitement, but none of those things can be neatly put in a bucket.

If I were to lay it out, it'd be that I like:

• to build
• to design
• to talk to people
• most of all, to learn

So what does that make me?

An engineer? A designer? A product manager?

I'm not really sure. All of them? None of them? I like to see myself as a generalist, but it's hard to differentiate yourself when you say "I do everything" - especially in a world that prioritizes specialization.

The easiest label I've found is product engineer. I love the freedom of thinking big ideas and deeply about hard problems. Consequently, I love the rigor and difficulty of actually building something. They come hand in hand for me. I don't want to just come up with an idea and then tell someone "OK go build this."

So for now that's good enough... maybe in the future there will be a better term? I hope so.