I've worked as a software engineer for major companies as a back end developer and as a front end developer at different times over the past few years (though big companies rarely give you the option to do both at the same time; which is a waste). With 14+ years of experience, anyone can be a full stack developer and it can really speeds things up if the company is willing to leverage your skills.
The Myth of the Full Stack Developer
31–40 of 104 posts
Re: The Myth of the Full Stack Developer
#32I used to be a full-stack developer, back when the front-end was jQuery. Once the JavaScript community started going insane with new front-end frameworks every two weeks, and none of the companies I was interviewing with used jQuery anymore, I decided to only be a backend engineer. I don't like working with JavaScript anyway.
Re: The Myth of the Full Stack Developer
#33I recently moved into a full stack developer role. Not because I am a rock star ninja coder, but because I am the only developer employee in the entire company. The only difference now from some of my more specialist dev roles is that I spend a lot more time researching things on Google/Stackoverflow etc. So when I hear full stack developer I can help but thinking "So you spend a lot of time on Google as well?" :)
[deleted]
Re: The Myth of the Full Stack Developer
#34Why do you only ever hear about full stack developers in web developer context? I work in FinTech and trading systems - very high performance and low latency systems. I deal with databases and huge amounts of data too. And I've (as well as coworkers) have hacked together trading GUIs and simple CGI to throw together data visualizations. But none of us would ever call ourselves full-stack and we'd never hire a front-e…
>From what I've seen "full stack" seems to be entirely a web notion. Is it just that the backends are simpler - requiring little more than glueing together some Spring components for CRUD operations?
Maybe it has more to do with the growing complexity and scope creep on the front end. There is an absurd amount of tools/frameworks/libraries that go into the modern stereotypical web page.
Re: The Myth of the Full Stack Developer
#35Why do you only ever hear about full stack developers in web developer context? I work in FinTech and trading systems - very high performance and low latency systems. I deal with databases and huge amounts of data too. And I've (as well as coworkers) have hacked together trading GUIs and simple CGI to throw together data visualizations. But none of us would ever call ourselves full-stack and we'd never hire a front-e…
>Why do you only ever hear about full stack developers in web developer context?
Two reasons
1. Web developers wanting to improve their value
2. Companies trying to save cost
Re: The Myth of the Full Stack Developer
#36This again. Is a doctor in his first year of being a full fledged doctor any less of a doctor than one with 20 years of experience? The more experienced doctor is almost assuredly better and preferable, but both of them are doctors. This assumption that you have to be a master of the front end and a master of the back end to be a full stack developer is flawed from the start. Have you created economic value with a co…
I don't think your analogy holds up. Theres really no such thing as just a "doctor". Everyone specializes in some field, even if that specialization is in generalization. But doctors who specialize in general cases (i.e. family practice) serve the role of passing you off to the appropriate specialist to fulfill your needs. And in the same way I would expect a highly experienced programmer to know the limits of their…
So how doesn't it hold up? In no way did OP suggest that you need to be able to do everything on any conceivable project by yourself. There could be plenty things that are outside the scope of any given Full Stack Developer. How would that invalidate all the times when they were not?
Re: The Myth of the Full Stack Developer
#37Cached version, since it's down: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:9mRe-8...
Thanks. Worth a read. Love this line: "for the love of god, read the HTTP spec"
Re: The Myth of the Full Stack Developer
#38I'm a full stack developer. Myth busted.
Nay sayers ask me any question you like.
Re: The Myth of the Full Stack Developer
#39I recently moved into a full stack developer role. Not because I am a rock star ninja coder, but because I am the only developer employee in the entire company. The only difference now from some of my more specialist dev roles is that I spend a lot more time researching things on Google/Stackoverflow etc. So when I hear full stack developer I can help but thinking "So you spend a lot of time on Google as well?" :)
No, I don't. It is certainly possible to become competent web developer over whole stack as long as you don't expect to be proficient in every currently popular framework out there.
Pick a set of tools, learn them well and move laterally/dive deeper when you need to.
Re: The Myth of the Full Stack Developer
#40Why do you only ever hear about full stack developers in web developer context? I work in FinTech and trading systems - very high performance and low latency systems. I deal with databases and huge amounts of data too. And I've (as well as coworkers) have hacked together trading GUIs and simple CGI to throw together data visualizations. But none of us would ever call ourselves full-stack and we'd never hire a front-e…
>It seems to be a very new concept.
It was probably invented to get a wider range of skills in a single position for a similar price of a front-end / back-end developer position.
It could also be the business is saying they don't want specialists at this time and just need someone to do medium or lower difficulty work in either side.
Full stack is web parlance, but anyone who works with GUIs (desktop/mobile/etc.) is technically a "full stack" dev, and it's common for C# desktop developers to also do GUI work.