Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

artur-martsinkovskyi.github.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 88 posts

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

#51

Post by ebiester »

chx wrote: post #46
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.

Last release, I was unbalanced on the back end. This release is different. The work changes. Do I lay people off and rehire each quarter based on business need? (No.) do I tell business we can’t do more valuable work while less valuable work is happening?

I have a budget as a manager. I can’t always just hire more.

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

#53

Post by titanomachy »

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…

You argue that powerful open-source tools should lower the barrier to entry. That's probably true. But I think there is also some differentiation that happens: the best developers are able to learn more tools and squeeze out more productivity. So a highly motivated and somewhat clever engineer can do a passable job of ops/db/backend/frontend/design on their own, which makes them quite valuable to businesses.

FAANGs are a bit of a different story, as you point out. But they also have a lot of infrastructure and culture in place that allows specialists to work efficiently.

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

#54

Post by andrewingram »

I disagree with the argument that you can't have a high level of skill in multiple parts of the stack without sacrificing a personal life. But I do tend to believe you can't operate at that skill level for each discipline at the same time.

This is based on my own personal experience of course, but in any given job I tend to be full-stack, but with a bias towards a certain area of the stack. My contribution to the other areas of the stack is in more of an advisory/consultant role.

On the other hand, I know full-stack devs who are far better at context-switching than I am. Subjectively I don't think their output is at the same quality as mine, but there is definite value in what they're able to do.

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

#55

Post by walshemj »

Aeolun wrote: post #49
avip wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?”

I suspect in the UK it would have been an "ology" from a former polytechnic.

Though having said that I have only had two bad experiences with recruiters in the UK.

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

#56

Post by walshemj »

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.

A lot of recruitment processes do unfortunately

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

#57

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#58

Post by scarface74 »

walshemj wrote: post #56
scarface74 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A lot of recruitment processes do unfortunately

That’s why I avoid those companies and I’m both in an area of the country where it’s not part of the recruitment process and have nurtured a network over a couple of decades that allows me to jump through fewer hoops.

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

#59

Post by sanderjd »

ebiester wrote: post #51
chx wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Last release, I was unbalanced on the back end. This release is different. The work changes. Do I lay people off and rehire each quarter based on business need? (No.) do I tell business we can’t do more valuable work while less valuable work is happening? I have a budget as a manager. I can’t always just hire more.

My two cents: you don't need "full stack developers", but you also don't want "front end developers" and "back end developers". You want people who can play either role (and many more) as needed, but with training friction in between.

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

#60

Post by marcus_holmes »

ebiester wrote: post #51
chx wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Last release, I was unbalanced on the back end. This release is different. The work changes. Do I lay people off and rehire each quarter based on business need? (No.) do I tell business we can’t do more valuable work while less valuable work is happening? I have a budget as a manager. I can’t always just hire more.

Can you stream multiple releases in parallel instead of doing them in series?

E.g. release A has 75% back-end, release B has 75% front-end. You can have front-end devs finish their work on release A and then start on release B before release A is out. (Though, obviously, not that simple. You'll need at least one front-end dev to stay on release A to solve integration issues, and you'll probably need a back-end dev to create endpoints, etc, on release B. But the principle holds, still).

It's more efficient to keep everyone working at their fastest, most productive (and enjoyable) tasks whenever possible. But it does take more (and better) management to handle it.

Post reply on HN