I know managers love that term, but I think I’ve come to hear it as an insult… Sorta like being called an unprofessional “jack of all trades” budget handyman that does everything mediocre…
I’m more insulted when people call themselves “full stack” but can’t restart Apache on their own.
Perhaps their “stack” only ever uses caddy
Perhaps their stack is on Windows 2005 Server
Perhaps what they developed is a bunch of Windows 2005 Servers stacked on top of each other
Nah, code is code. I’ve done a good chunk up and down the stack. DB specs, angular, no SQL, sql, react, jQuery, c#, node, infra, k8s, pho, java, blah blah blah
Fact of the matter is if you really want to be marketable you have to learn everything thrown at you, and usually fast. I say my number one skill is being able to pick up new tech, and recognizing where I need to learn more.
Not trying to sound arrogant, there is a ton I don’t know, but to be employable now as an engineer you pretty much have to say yes when they ask if you know something, or prove you can learn it.
I was rejected for one job because I hadn’t learned python fully.
Oh yeah but I can pick it up, probably before starting. I’ve done C++, C#, NodeJS, Go, Ruby, what’s another language haha
" Sorry we really need someone who can code in python"
:| k well bye, guess it’s just impossible to fathom that I could learn yet another scripting backend language. 15 years into my career I’m pretty sure I can just go learn another language now. If you bothered to test my skills at all you’d see in qualified, but sure. I learned it anyway just to spite them.
I was rejected for a role because I had experience with C++98, but they were developing exclusively in C++11. 🙄
Wow, too bad the Venn diagrams for those two are two completely separate unconnecting circles. I swear recruiters, just so freaking dumb
It wasn’t the recruiter, it was the HM that made the decision. Dodged that bullet. The recruiter was great, we actually hung out some time after. He even bought me one of the devices I would have been working on and gave it to me after the interview, possibly as an attempt to butter me up, because he was excited about landing me.
that’s fair, mine was a recruiter so I just assumed. Always frustrating that our careers hang in the balance of people who don’t understand what we do
My current employer is run by highly technical people, and I know for a fact that the CTO is smarter than I am. It’s refreshing.
Many languages today share so many common roots that if you know one you know enough of the others to get the ball rolling. I went from strictly front end to suddenly working in Python and PHP and similar languages. If you know the basics you know enough
it’s very rare that I learn something that I can’t pull some knowledge from somewhere else. I think moving to frontend was the largest leap as a whole, just that I’m not coding purely for efficiency and that things are reactive, where on servers most times you want to not be reactive. (Oversimplification). Overall yeah, code is code, every language and framework has it’s quirks, but learning your first one is the hardest, second one is the biggest one that you realize how languages differ, and then after that it just gets easier. I haven’t learned Go though… should probably do that at some point
If the salary is right, you can call me whatever you want.
My company has everything, but the titles are usually self-assigned.
Back end developers tend to write weird front end code, so their front end PRs usually need extra scrutiny.
Front end developers tend to write careless back end code, so their back end PRs usually need extra scrutiny.
I am a full stack developer, so all of my PRs need extra scrutiny.
Not an insult, just… highly inaccurate. I can do everything from hardware, via databases, to coding against said databases. But for your sake, I hope you’re not looking for UX/UI beyond (ab)using STDIO.
EDIT: What I cannot do is spelling, it seems.
I prefer the term “busty”
Fully-stacked developer…
That is a compliment. The separation of front end developer and back end developer is obsolete and untrue. Either you are a developer or not. If you work on web, then you must, now or in the future, know how web browsers work, how APIs work, how to write and consume them, etc. The browser is just an API we consume from JS. There are many others.
100% agree. Programming is programming, and these divisions are arbitrary and restrictive.
It’d be like if someone wanted to learn a language, but refused to learn vocabulary about an important topic.
I’m not going to write .Net, you can’t make me do it. I’m not going to write Python, you can’t make me do it.
Is your backend Node?!? Let’s go baby, I’m a full stack dev.
Node and JS is just an example of how easy it is to write code for the back and front ends. You may employ as much langues as you want like PHP, Java, Rust, Python or even Elixir. Does not matter.
If you’re not being sarcastic, why limit yourself to only one thing? If you’re working on some amazing UI with tons of CSS animations and a full audiovisual experience, and it takes intimate knowledge of everything frontend, I guess it would make sense. But if you’re just making internal CRUD apps, I don’t see a reason why a given domain is special enough to have its own job title.
I agree that back end dev and front end JS are pretty much the same skillset, but HTML and CSS (especially so if you include design and UX) are very different and not something I would expect any dev to be able to pick up easily.
I would mostly be confused based on my lack of any programming experience.
I would mostly be confused based on my years of programming experience
It’s a compliment. Simply put, a senior full stack developer has leverage in their career’s direction that a senior frontend or senior backend developer doesn’t.
As a new dev who is still working on a “full-stack web dev” course. I would definitely take it as a compliment.
I think it depends on the context. Calling me a full stack is an acknowledgement that I can work on every step of the system and usually every part of the system. I don’t consider it to mean equally good.
However if it keeps getting brought up when I am not supposed to be working on those other steps, that signals to me that maybe they are trying to push more work into me that I shouldn’t be do.
I can appreciate that when someone says “Our X Expert”. It definitely feels like more praise and more value.
Can’t say I would take it as either. Just means I’m qualified to work on the front- and back-end code at a professional level - no more no less.
I think it’s a complement. We’re not in the dark ages anymore where you had to be intimately familiar with each target platform and have different people who each know everything about their little part of the stack. Nowadays it’s feasible for one person to be productive in devops, database, backend, frontend, etc. because so many people have gone to great effort to get us there. I personally get a lot of enjoyment out of being able to stand up an app by myself without necessarily needing to work with six other teams. That way we can have an actual vision for an overall user experience rather than getting caught up in compatibilities and discussions of ever changing best practices.
I couldn’t imagine tying myself to a single category for my whole career.
I’ve done front end, back end, database, web, Windows, and Linux development. If the job calls for learning something new, I’m on it. These days I’m making datacenter software for admins to use to manage their distributed applications. Before this, I was doing the same thing for factory automation at the edge.
Specializing has its value, but the more flexible you can be, the more useful you will be when the landscape changes and your boss suddenly asks you to set up an AI system or something.
Before I answer, I need to give some background. I’ve been in IT for past 20 years. I’ve been a backend developer, frontend developer, mobile developer, database administrator and most recently a devops engineer. I’ve got a degree in electronics and telecommunications and have had quite a bit of exposure to printed circuit board design, including processor programming. To answer your question, when someone refers to me as a “full stack” I don’t take this as an insult. But it’s diminishing.
