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btrettel comments on Open thread, Aug. 10 - Aug. 16, 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion
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What examples are there of jobs which can make use of high general intelligence, that at the same time don't require rare domain-specific skills?
I have some years of college left before I'll be a certified professional, and I'm good but not world-class awesome at a variety of things, yet judging by encounters with some well and truly employed people, I find myself wondering how come I'm either not employed or duped into working for free, while these doofuses have well-paying jobs. The answer tends to be, for lack of trying on my part, but it would be quite a nasty surprise if I do begin to try and it turns out that my most relied-upon quality turns out not to be worth much. So, better to ask: how much is intelligence worth for earning money, when not supplemented by the relevant pieces of paper or loads of experience?
Programming is a skill, but not a particularly rare one. Beyond a certain level of intelligence, I don't think there's much if any correlation between programming ability and intelligence. Moreover, I think programming is one area where standard credentials don't matter too much. If you have a good project on GitHub, that can be enough.
gwern wrote something related before:
Personally, I think going off raw intelligence doesn't work so well, especially if you'll be reinventing the wheel because of your lack of domain knowledge. Getting rare skills which are in demand is a smart strategy, and you'd be better off going that route. Here's a good book built on that premise.