If someone were to call you a "full stack" developer, would that feel like a complement or an insult?
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…
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.
Well, personally, I’d be pretty peeved because my favorite focus is database shit - but in general I don’t put much stock into titles unless they’re being disbursed to justify forcing more work on me without compensation.
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.
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
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.
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.
I’m an hourly customer service worker going to college part time as a statistician, so mostly I’d just be concerned at what sort of operation this person is running but accept the promotion.
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.
It depends on the context, who is saying it and why. If my manager is trying to say that after I’ve made it clear that I’m not interested in frontend development then it’s insulting. Mostly because my manager isn’t listening to me.
I understand most of the stack from photons to UX. I run optical, packet hardware and I define software. I consult on security and I inform the service desks. I’m that “break glass” guy you don’t want to call in the middle if the night because I might be sarcastic, and then I’ll cancel meetings for the next two days in revenge.
I’ve also been in this swamp since before the sky learned how to rain.
Call me whatever you want, but you’d best smile when you say it or I’ll delete your account and blackhole your network.
“Full stack” is meant to be complimentary but is also highly situational, in the same way credentialed engineers and credentialed architects bristle when those.terms are used in the tech sector. They Did the Program, and Showed the Work. Those.of us in the tech sector are doing some stolen valor.by adopting those titles in our roles.
“Full stack” is situational because no two shops use the same stack. Every shop has its own technology preferences, so if you know Apache and ServiceNow, you’ll still be useless in a shop that uses Xendesk and Nginx. It just.means you know YOUR venue’s technology organization.
Really it’s an industry buzz term, and you should run from any recruiters who casually use it but can’t also describe exactly WHAT stack that shop they’re pimping is using.
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