In recent years translators have experienced a new variation imposed by market dynamics and new technologies with many translation-like activities (e.g., transediting, post-editing, intralingual work, etc.). The question which arises is whether these new practices require the translator's skill set to be redesigned. In this article, we argue that the modern translator's skill set can accommodate the variation in new translation tasks because of its robust design. The translator's skill set has a range of skills from simple to complex which can potentially be transferred to other translation-like activities. We focus on the higher-order metacognitive skills: planning, self-monitoring and self-revision, and we hypothesize that they are the locus of the skill set robust design because they are generic and transferable. First, we review the approaches to the modern translator's skill set and the conditions under which skills become transferable. Next, we present the results of an experimental study which tested whether professional translators and trainees transfer their planning, self-monitoring and self-revision skills to a task of intralingual paraphrasing. We conclude that the translator's skill set does have a robust design but its robustness is demonstrated only once a certain threshold level in the development of expertise has been achieved.