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…
“Full stack” is a way to devalue front end work.
I’m more insulted when people call themselves “full stack” but can’t restart Apache on their own.
Perhaps their “stack” only ever uses caddy
Perhaps their stack is on Windows 2005 Server
Perhaps what they developed is a bunch of Windows 2005 Servers stacked on top of each other
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.
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.
If the salary is right, you can call me whatever you want.
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.
/*clickety-click*
☝️ Just flexing.
“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.
Compliment. I love being able to do all the parts of modern software.
I think every programmer should know how to write frontend and backend code, and how to deploy their code. Sure, everyone has their own specialization and things they like to do, but that doesn’t mean they should be ignorant of all aspects of software development.
I think it depends on the context. Calling me a full stack is an acknowledgement that I can work on every step of the system and usually every part of the system. I don’t consider it to mean equally good.
However if it keeps getting brought up when I am not supposed to be working on those other steps, that signals to me that maybe they are trying to push more work into me that I shouldn’t be do.
I can appreciate that when someone says “Our X Expert”. It definitely feels like more praise and more value.
That is a compliment. The separation of front end developer and back end developer is obsolete and untrue. Either you are a developer or not. If you work on web, then you must, now or in the future, know how web browsers work, how APIs work, how to write and consume them, etc. The browser is just an API we consume from JS. There are many others.
I agree that back end dev and front end JS are pretty much the same skillset, but HTML and CSS (especially so if you include design and UX) are very different and not something I would expect any dev to be able to pick up easily.
100% agree. Programming is programming, and these divisions are arbitrary and restrictive.
It’d be like if someone wanted to learn a language, but refused to learn vocabulary about an important topic.
I’m not going to write .Net, you can’t make me do it. I’m not going to write Python, you can’t make me do it.
Is your backend Node?!? Let’s go baby, I’m a full stack dev.
Node and JS is just an example of how easy it is to write code for the back and front ends. You may employ as much langues as you want like PHP, Java, Rust, Python or even Elixir. Does not matter.
If you’re not being sarcastic, why limit yourself to only one thing? If you’re working on some amazing UI with tons of CSS animations and a full audiovisual experience, and it takes intimate knowledge of everything frontend, I guess it would make sense. But if you’re just making internal CRUD apps, I don’t see a reason why a given domain is special enough to have its own job title.
I’d assume they were trying to pimp me to some buzzwordoholic. I don’t see any reasonable interpretation of it that’s insulting, though.
Having it be (perceived as) the norm is absolutely stupid - but the issue is with ignorant management and recruiters, not people who get into entire stacks honestly for fun or profit.
Before I answer, I need to give some background. I’ve been in IT for past 20 years. I’ve been a backend developer, frontend developer, mobile developer, database administrator and most recently a devops engineer. I’ve got a degree in electronics and telecommunications and have had quite a bit of exposure to printed circuit board design, including processor programming. To answer your question, when someone refers to me as a “full stack” I don’t take this as an insult. But it’s diminishing.
I would assume you were misinformed and promptly point you to my previous JavaScript projects to dissuade you of such illusions.
I would mostly be confused based on my lack of any programming experience.
I would mostly be confused based on my years of programming experience
I think it’s a complement. We’re not in the dark ages anymore where you had to be intimately familiar with each target platform and have different people who each know everything about their little part of the stack. Nowadays it’s feasible for one person to be productive in devops, database, backend, frontend, etc. because so many people have gone to great effort to get us there. I personally get a lot of enjoyment out of being able to stand up an app by myself without necessarily needing to work with six other teams. That way we can have an actual vision for an overall user experience rather than getting caught up in compatibilities and discussions of ever changing best practices.
