I don't want to be a full-fullstack developer • Hacker News Board

Re: I don't want to be a full-fullstack developer

#41

Post by choeger » Sat, May 25, 2019, 10:37 PM UTC

> you don’t expect the dentist to cure your heart and neurosurgeon to fix your hemorrhoids.

That's your problem right there. Your frontend is not as different from your backend as dentristy is from neurosurgery. If you think it is, you might lack some understanding of how things work.

Tbh., whenever someone hails the specialization and how their particular field is so special, I hear them saying "I really do not want to be bothered with all these nasty details". And that's fine. But it's not something to be proud of. Personally, I would love to have a better understanding of how user interfaces or database work internally. I think the understanding would only make me better.

Re: I don't want to be a full-fullstack developer

#42

Post by sjy » Sat, May 25, 2019, 10:40 PM UTC

thatoneuser wrote: post #22

root_axis wrote: post #11

> As years go by the industry is going deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole of developer-focused engineering process and developers go on to combine more and more responsibilities beneath the surface of single cranium. Why do you think developer salaries are so high? As the advancement and sophistication of open-source and SaaS offerings increasingly empowers individual developers to do more for businesses, so do d…

Then by your own logic developers salaries are low. If you're replacing three people and not being paid three salaries then the company has just found a way to squeeze more blood for less.

That's competition. In a properly functioning market, in the long run, the company's reduced costs should be passed on to consumers and not captured by developers. (Unless we're talking about an exceptionally talented individual, rather than changes in the industry, leading to one person doing the job of three.)

Re: I don't want to be a full-fullstack developer

#43

Post by fernandotakai » Sat, May 25, 2019, 10:41 PM UTC

scarface74 wrote: post #31

dgzl wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently was looking for new work. When trying to apply to Developer opportunities, I realized that recruiters largely didn't know what they were talking about. Many times I was told that my Computer Science degree, large school projects, personal projects such as random apps and maintaining an Arch Linux setup, awards such as winning 1st place in a Google Hackathon, several years of student work including iOS deve…

Well, for a company that wants someone to hit the ground running in their chosen stack, your degree is useless as well as your ability to do well in hackathons, and unless they are looking for an iOS developer, so are your iOS skills. Most jobs don’t need or care that someone can do leetCode or invert a binary tree.

yup :/

i mean, i never did well at hackathons, never got first prize at anything and i'm not graduated.

but, i do have real-world-experience with early/mid/late stage startups as well as corp jobs (i did a project for a local bank working with mainframes). due to that, most companies don't even care about my lack of graduation -- but they do care that i know when to cut corners, when to do crunch-time/overtime, how to take care of customers (including answering support emails!).

real world experience is always much more important.

Re: I don't want to be a full-fullstack developer

#44

Post by fernandotakai » Sat, May 25, 2019, 10:45 PM UTC

thrower123 wrote: post #17

I've worked with very few developers that I could even begin to call full-stack. They either segment themselves as front-end or back-end only, and can't cross the divide. I don't much like it, because that interface between the two is usually terrible as a result, with pieces that don't match, APIs that don't even work, and generally a huge amount of work to integrate by somebody that actually understands both pieces…

most fullstack developers i know have a strong expertise into something and ok knowledge (as in, they can write features, review PRs, fix bugs -- but they are not super experts) in the other areas. which makes sense, it's quite hard to be amazing at everything.

Re: I don't want to be a full-fullstack developer

#45

Post by seanmcdirmid » Sat, May 25, 2019, 11:01 PM UTC

dgzl wrote: post #19

20years wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem that I have seen is most companies don't want to pay a skilled full-stack developer what they are worth. They think $100k is the going rate and unfortunately a lot of junior developers are calling themselves full-stack and jumping at that salary. Then the lines get blurred and the true value of a full-stack developer gets diminished.

I recently was looking for new work. When trying to apply to Developer opportunities, I realized that recruiters largely didn't know what they were talking about. Many times I was told that my Computer Science degree, large school projects, personal projects such as random apps and maintaining an Arch Linux setup, awards such as winning 1st place in a Google Hackathon, several years of student work including iOS deve…

Holy, what region are you in? That definitely wouldn't happen over here in the Seattle area, not at top tier companies or even startups that know what they are doing.

Re: I don't want to be a full-fullstack developer

#46

Post by chx » Sat, May 25, 2019, 11:12 PM UTC

ebiester wrote: post #30

So, it seems like the pendulum is swinging back. I remember companies with more dedicated specialists, and it could be challenging to ship small features due to large coordination efforts. Further, sometimes the work is unbalanced. In my current company, we recently had a backend-dominant release in a way that the frontend team didn't have as much work. That team rolled up its sleeves and dug in to solve problems, ev…

> Further, sometimes the work is unbalanced

My team has just grown my two backend developers to three. We also have six frontenders. Yes, the work is unbalanced, hire for it.

Re: I don't want to be a full-fullstack developer

#47

Post by justaaron » Sat, May 25, 2019, 11:12 PM UTC

I have the (admittedly subjective) sensation that I read a similar blog article just about every week. As the author aknowledges the various opposing points, we could, perhaps, sensibly surmise that it's contextually dependent.

Re: I don't want to be a full-fullstack developer

#48

Post by ellius » Sat, May 25, 2019, 11:12 PM UTC

nicoburns wrote: post #38

> Fullstack is interesting because is seems to be almost unique to the software engineering field. Other fields mostly have more division of labour, you don’t expect the dentist to cure your heart and neurosurgeon to fix your hemorrhoids. What about GPs? Just like the medical field, software needs both specialists (to go really deep down the rabbit holes), and generalists (to tie everything together). Personally I lo…

Architectural coherence is such an important part of software design. I agree with your point completely—you need specialists for deep, specific problems, but you also need people with a view of the entire system.

Re: I don't want to be a full-fullstack developer

#49

Post by Aeolun » Sat, May 25, 2019, 11:12 PM UTC

avip wrote: post #29

dgzl wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently was looking for new work. When trying to apply to Developer opportunities, I realized that recruiters largely didn't know what they were talking about. Many times I was told that my Computer Science degree, large school projects, personal projects such as random apps and maintaining an Arch Linux setup, awards such as winning 1st place in a Google Hackathon, several years of student work including iOS deve…

I recently had a recruiter questioning my application for a "senior developer" role as "You seem to have no background in software". I told her I have "a background" of well over 10 years as a developer, and consider it my profession. "So why did you study Biology"? she replied.

“Does your history degree help you during recruitment?”

Re: I don't want to be a full-fullstack developer

#50

Post by danmaz74 » Sat, May 25, 2019, 11:25 PM UTC

exfaang wrote: post #20

root_axis wrote: post #11

> As years go by the industry is going deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole of developer-focused engineering process and developers go on to combine more and more responsibilities beneath the surface of single cranium. Why do you think developer salaries are so high? As the advancement and sophistication of open-source and SaaS offerings increasingly empowers individual developers to do more for businesses, so do d…

I disagree with that assessment. Sophisticated open source, IaaS, and SaaS offerings greatly lower the barrier of entry in this industry and ought to have a negative effect on wages as dictated by supply and demand. Your argument undermines itself by highlighting that a single open-source-equipped person can do the job of 3 grey beards of old. That automation of labor runs counter to rising wages. As another data poi…

Automation usually reduces the number of jobs, but increases the pay of those jobs which remain.