When your business goals shift, can your team shift with them? Success now depends on teams that can learn fast, adapt quickly, and contribute across different areas as your needs evolve. A professional with T-shaped skills is more relevant than ever. These are individuals who combine deep expertise in a specific area with a broad understanding of complementary fields. This unique combination makes them especially valuable in navigating a market defined by constant change and the need to deliver results.
T-shaped professionals help move ideas from concept to execution more efficiently, and respond to shifts in priorities with ease. For organizations, building multidisciplinary teams with these skills opens up a wider range of solutions and helps drive meaningful innovation.
Moreover, we’ve also been seeing the rise of N-shaped and M-shaped professionals—people with profound knowledge in more than one area. These profiles are reshaping how technology companies think about talent.
In this article, we’ll share what we’ve learned from working with diverse talent and how their skill set help teams achieve long-term success.
What are T-Shaped Skills and Why They Matter in Today’s Workforce
To understand what T-shaped skills are—and why they matter—it helps to picture the shape of the letter “T”. The vertical bar represents deep expertise in a specific field while the horizontal bar reflects the ability to collaborate across disciplines and apply knowledge in areas beyond one’s core specialty.
This combination is valuable in today’s cross-functional, fast-moving tech teams. For example, a data analyst may specialize in data visualization and statistical modeling, but often works alongside data engineers or product managers. By understanding how data pipelines are built or how product goals are defined, they can ask better questions, align more closely with business needs, and deliver insights that drive smarter decisions.
This doesn’t mean every team member needs to know everything. Instead, it’s all about blending depth with breadth—pairing specialization with broader knowledge that supports teamwork, creativity, and agile thinking.
Beyond technical knowledge, T-shaped professionals also have strong soft skills. Because they interact with different departments and personalities, they can develop better communication and emotional intelligence abilities. They tend to build bridges and help teams move faster and more efficiently together.
This is where it’s helpful to distinguish T-shaped professionals from generalists and specialists:
- Specialists go deep in one area, like the vertical line of an “I”.
- Generalists, on the other hand, have broader knowledge across fields but may not go as deep.
- T-shaped individuals combine the best of both worlds, which makes them a strong fit for organizations that need both depth and flexibility.
Of course, hyper-specialized professionals still have an important role to play. But today’s roles often call for flexibility, cross-disciplinary understanding, and the ability to collaborate in diverse teams.That’s where T-shaped talent shines.
The Rise of N-Shaped and M-Shaped Skills in Teams
As businesses grow more complex, there’s also increasing value in professionals who go beyond the traditional T-shaped skills model.
That’s where N-shaped and M-shaped skills come in—two profiles that reflect not just versatility but expertise in many areas, paired with strong collaboration abilities.
What are N-Shaped Skills?
N-shaped professionals bring profound knowledge in two distinct areas. This dual specialization creates strong, focused versatility.
For instance, someone with expertise in project management and automation can help connect dots across teams and improve collaboration between positions that typically work in silos.
One example: a DevOps engineer with strong skills in both infrastructure and pipeline automation and a working understanding of software development. This kind of profile adds agility to teams by allowing a single professional to contribute across intersecting tasks.
What are M-Shaped Skills?
An M-shaped professional, on the other hand, is someone with expertise in three or more domains. But what makes them truly valuable isn’t just such numbers—it’s how they connect those areas to generate fresh insights and solve problems.
For example, someone who understands back-end development, cloud computing, and system architecture—while also excelling at team leadership—can contribute across technical, strategic, and interpersonal levels.
That’s why M-shaped skills are gaining traction in environments like tech, where being able to bridge fields and think outside the box is a huge advantage.
Let’s break it down further to help you visualize the differences between the four most common multi-skilled profiles:
Comparative Table of Professional Skill Profiles
| Profile | Knowledge breadth | Technical breadth | Specializations | Cross-functional collaboration | Roles (examples) |
| Generalist | High | Low | 0 | High | Product Owner with understanding of various areas but no technical focus. |
| T-shaped Skills | High | High | 1 | High | Product Manager with broad vision and focus on discovery. |
| N-shaped Skills | Medium-High | High | 2 | High | DevOps specialist in infrastructure and automation. |
| M-shaped Skills | High | High | 3 or more | Very High | Software Engineer proficient in backend, cloud, and architecture, with strong communication skills. |
Why This Matters for Your Team
Hiring professionals with N- or M-shaped skill sets allows tech teams to be more resilient and adaptive. These individuals can wear multiple hats, fill gaps during times of rapid change, and act as bridges between departments. This is especially useful for smaller teams or startups, where flexibility is essential and roles evolve quickly.
Of course, there’s a trade-off: the more areas someone covers, the harder it becomes to maintain the same level of depth as a hyper-specialized professional (an I-shaped expert). That’s why the key is balance—building teams that mix specialists with T-, N-, and M-shaped talent to cover both precision and adaptability.
Addressing Skill Gaps to Build Stronger, Cross-Functional Teams
As we explore the value of diverse skill profiles, it’s just as important to address one of the greatest challenges companies face today: skill gaps.
They can happen when an employee or a team lacks some of the key competencies required to meet business goals. These skills can be technical or behavioral, and left unaddressed, can prevent teams from performing to their full capacity.
To close these gaps, companies must first identify them. Here’s how to do it:
1. Plan Your Analysis
Start by defining your business goals—both short-term and long-term. These goals will help you understand the kind of talent you’ll need to succeed. Then, collect data on the current skills your teams have, and compare that with the skills they’ll need.
2. Identify the Skills That Matter Most
Not all skills are equally important. Focus on the ones that directly impact your objectives. Once you’ve made that list, ask:
- Do we have these skills internally?
- Where are we falling short?
- Are we fully using the skills we already have?
This helps you and your HR team prioritize training and hiring efforts.
3. Make Data-Driven Decisions
Once you’ve gathered and analyzed your data, it’s time to act. Tools like organizational charts or talent management platforms can help you visualize the skill distribution across your teams.
Having this data in a centralized, searchable system makes it easier to share insights and plan next steps with other team leaders.
4. Close the Gaps Through Training and Development
Now’s the time to fill the gaps. This can be done by:
- Offering target training programs (internally or through partners).
- Empowering managers to lead skill-building efforts.
- Creating individual development plans for each team member.
Ongoing feedback and regular check-ins between managers and employees help track progress and adjust plans when needed.
5. Stay Close to Your People Team
It might seem obvious, but it’s worth emphasizing: Your People team plays a key role in building a future-ready workforce. From recruiting professionals with the right mix of skills to choosing flexible work models that best fit their needs, HR can meaningfully support team performance.
The Payoff
Identifying and closing skill gaps has real business value. It boosts team performance, improves hiring accuracy, reduces turnover, and helps future-proof your organization.
The Future of Work: Evolving Beyond the T-Shaped Team
The future of work can shift at any moment, but one thing remains certain: collaboration is here to stay, across roles and skill sets.
By fostering a culture that encourages skill development in all directions, your team becomes more collaborative, agile, and resilient. You break down silos, strengthen cross-functional performance, and future-proof your workforce for whatever comes next.
Now’s the time to take a closer look at your teams. Are your current skill structures helping or holding you back?
If you’re ready to strengthen your talent strategy with multidimensional talent, Techunting is here to help. Let’s explore how we can support your hiring needs.
