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

> the rabbit hole of developer-focused engineering process and developers go on to combine more and more responsibilities beneath the surface of single cranium.

(1) There's a strong reason for this desire. Software systems are very interdependent.

We you can see from front to back and side to side, and you can recoginze the potential for improvement or optimization.

(2) "Full-stack software developer" is more specialized then you might think.

As a "full stack" web developer, I can count on one hand the number of times I've looked at a browser's source code. Same for databases. I understand the basics of DNS, IP, TCP, UDP, BGP, but not the details. And my knowledge of common ISAs is laughable. And I have essentially no knowledge of hardware: physical CPUs/GPUs, displays, fiber optics, etc.

Allow me the exaggeration but I think that if everybody would be full stack, frameworks would be much simpler, there is a lot of gratuite complexity that grows because people have the time to dedicated just to one side.

We had this role back in 1997 We called those roles webmasters. It involved everything frontend / backend plus running a server on your bedroom floor that powered a company

I'm fine with all of those roles. I've been able to pick them up along the way and others (report writer use to be a separate role).

The one role I can't master is designer (not frontend developer). It isn't logical and it can't be learned through instructions alone. And the rules change.. what looks great today looked alien yesterday and boring tomorrow.

Generally they don’t require the entire team to be full stack. But being able to flip priorities from 2:1 to 1:2 front end vs backend is often necessary to maintain velocity between milestones. Prettying up the interface is a lot of work. So is scaling up your backend for the new customers your facelift just got you.

In a small place having a third of your team being full stack takes a lot of stress off the planning people.

Try to make a company. You have to be full-full-fullstack.