What I ACTUALLY do as a FULL STACK Software Developer!

A lot of people ask me about what full-stack development is and how it's different from front-end or back-end development. In this video I give my take on what full stack development is and why it's not better or worse than any particular path in software development.

🏆 *** Paid Coaching ***

[AndySterkowitz]

Did this video help clear up some misconceptions about full stack software development?

[chimerablack]

"A lot of my time is actually spent googling things I don't know" -- isn't that all of us?

[avibrarbrar]

Full stack developer == [front end, back end, devops, cook, cleaner, driver].add(lang.random)

[saksham]

Your channel will really outshine because you provide massive value to people by giving them valuable insights and suggestions. Great content. Thanks!

[CyberAbyss]

I just did 3 years at a start up. I was not the only developer but I was the jack of all trades go anywhere guy. I got everything from Excel VBA, Salesforce, C# MVC on IIS Stack w/ Angular Bootstrap CSS and MS SQL Data warehouse. A lot of other stuff too. Just have to be flexible and learn quick or die.

[computinginfo]

I have NEVER met a full stack dev, who enjoys front-end development. We do it because we have to. That's where the front-end frameworks come in.

[johndough]

IMO, fullstack basically means the company wants to hire one person to do the job of two or more people.

[knac]

This is pretty well explained. I will put my experience as both having worked as a "full stack" or "jack of all trades" dev and a more specialized roles (currently). The first kind of job lets you get a wider (not deeper) understading of how an integrated and fully implemented system works. It allows you to develop full solutions (and usually with much more freedom than you would under larger and more structured teams and organisations) and work on a variety of domain problems and find ways to break large problems into smaller problems and find integral solutions. So yeah, aspire to become full stack, but not jut on the web but on everything: from how do computer works at the lower level, how do network protocols work, etc. up to how stuff is rendered in that pretty web or game because it will allow you to understand systems better in general.


But at the same time, if you are the kind of person that enjoys having not only breadth but also deep knowledge and being efficient try to find areas of specialization you enjoy and focus on working on those skills. It will allow to contribute value otherwise you wouldn't, getting to know the problem domain really well, tools, languages, API's algorithms, identify patterns and problems for that certain domain faster and in the end allowing you to contribute more richly to solving certain kind of problems.


In the end try to find what kind of problems you like to solve, and that will guide you towards breadth or depth knowledge, but is ALWAYS good to have some breadth knowledge to understand how things 'connect' to each other and are influenced mutually.

[fanf]

Wow, what you said describes me so well as a full stack developer

[tim_t]

Most startups WILL coerce you to work as a full-stack dev. Even if the job post says either "Front-end" or "Back-end". 😂

[zvuk]

This video in one sentence: Fullstack can do anything (frontend, backend, mdw) but is not an expert in a certain field so has to google stuff a lot.

[AravindaMeewalaarachchi]

Finally, A honest practical answer suggested by youtube on Fronend vs Backend vs Full-stack war.

[idontwhy]

Hi Andy. Don't know if you will see this but I'm in school for this field now and it all started when I saw your channel recommending the book Headfirst Javascript. It's outdated but really helped me get my feet wet and see that it's something I wanted to pursue. Just wanted to say thanks for the inspiration! : ]

[adamcuculich]

Hey, man. I too am a self taught developer looking to start my job application process soon. Love your channel. Keep up the great content!

[thealbaniandude]

I think it depends on how many years you've been a full-stack developer for. If you're a junior then yeah, what you said about the lack of expertise is true. But if you've been a full-stack developer for +5 years (senior) then you probably know many frameworks in-depth because of how many different problems you've had to solve on them during these years.

[terencepan]

Holy shit, I've never heard my life described so well. Everything in this is 100% accurate.

[olganova]

Hey Andy, this was very helpful! You've done some great videos, where you highlighted the beginning of your journey as a self taught dev. Could you please tell us your story of progressing through and learning backend to a point when you felt confident enough as a full stack? P. S: you rock!

[aliciatrujillo]

As a recruiter, this helped me a lot to know to figure out what I'm looking for. Thank you

[hyzelfadhil]

This video is gold for someone in my 30s trying to get in the industry. Keep them coming!😊

[Comphonia]

Nice talk, a lot of generalists never get to be experts and that's okay. I would be bored sticking to just one stack, could do it for a project just not a lifetime.