I can’t be the only person who thinks “full stack” translates to “master of nothing.” One of the best career moves I ever made was shrug off the pressure to go full stack, and dedicate myself to backend only.
When it happens? That happened to me a long time ago. I’m still a backend developer. I can create UIs and I can spin up and manage docker CI infrastructure but I sure as hell don’t want to. A properly run company team should have separate professionals for UX, front end, back end, sysadmin, etc. Just because I am capable of doing those things does not mean I should.
Just because I am capable of doing those things does not mean I should.
This is the crux of why so many companies, especially smaller and medium sized ones, are a hot mess. capable of << good at, but of course it’s cheaper to just get johnny to do everything.
My apologies. My intention wasn’t a dig at engineers themselves, but rather the trend of employers seeking “full stack” engineers, and the implications of them shopping for a singular engineer willing to do the job of multiple engineers-- IE be taken advantage of, and the first to be let go, because of a lack of specialized domain knowledge, etc.
My company started with full stack devs only and we’ve transitioned to specialized back end and front end since we realized that 1 specialized BE Engineer and 1 specialized FE Engineer can work faster with better quality than having 2 Full Stack Engineers.
I can’t be the only person who thinks “full stack” translates to “master of nothing.” One of the best career moves I ever made was shrug off the pressure to go full stack, and dedicate myself to backend only.
Full stack means we do it because nobody else will.
I feel seen.
I might get that sentence embroidered on a pillow.
You don’t have to be a full stack dev for that to happen to you
No, but when it does happen, you’ll probably turn into one.
When it happens? That happened to me a long time ago. I’m still a backend developer. I can create UIs and I can spin up and manage docker CI infrastructure but I sure as hell don’t want to. A properly run company team should have separate professionals for UX, front end, back end, sysadmin, etc. Just because I am capable of doing those things does not mean I should.
This is the crux of why so many companies, especially smaller and medium sized ones, are a hot mess. capable of << good at, but of course it’s cheaper to just get johnny to do everything.
As someone who likes to dip their toes into everything, I feel a bit called out by “master of nothing”.
My apologies. My intention wasn’t a dig at engineers themselves, but rather the trend of employers seeking “full stack” engineers, and the implications of them shopping for a singular engineer willing to do the job of multiple engineers-- IE be taken advantage of, and the first to be let go, because of a lack of specialized domain knowledge, etc.
No worries. Wasn’t really offended. ;)
Fuck that employer behavior, though.
The truth is that there is value in both a generalist and a specialist.
It just means he can’t do it by himself.
Yours won’t be perfect, but you can do the whole thing by yourself.
Why would I want to do it by myself, in a professional team setting?
In my case, it was to increase the number of available job opportunities rather than any genuine interest.
My company started with full stack devs only and we’ve transitioned to specialized back end and front end since we realized that 1 specialized BE Engineer and 1 specialized FE Engineer can work faster with better quality than having 2 Full Stack Engineers.
Thank goodness issues respect the FE/BE break out.
deleted by creator