In the coming weeks we'll be launching a series of powerful resume building tools specifically for full stack engineers. It's not just another job board--we're going to totally change the way developers convey their skills to employers.
We welcome any thoughts, comments, or suggestions.
-Casey
Full-stack to many (more than not) means hardware, software, and the associated network setup, all in one person.
Being fluent in front/backend software only was normal, not specialized.
Edit: added detail to request
You can see an example of my profile: http://www.heapsortjobs.com/casey
I love the full stack and want to pursue it as my post-grad career. That being said, it seems like full-stack people are only really valuable in situations in which their full-stack capabilities of wearing multiple hats is competitively needed.
IMO, that only happens in the early stages of a startup or temporary resource constrained company (i.e. a project etc.). I.e. the working arrangements are in somewhat temporary in nature.
So the biggest issue I see with become a full stack developer is how to chase after these inevitable temporary work arrangements. That's my biggest hesitation: How do I make sure I have a constant stream of work if I assume that my current gig/work is gonna be limited in time.
I'm no expert, but I don't expect the conveyance of skills to be a major problem, it's more like a matching problem of people who need something done, but can't afford to hire multiple people for that.
First off, thanks for checking out the site. You are absolutely correct that full-stack engineers are _not_ needed at organizations of every size and structure. They are, in my experience, in the highest demand in any organization that has a small to medium size technical team. The reality is that many teams of this size exist--there are far more small teams than their are large ones in the workforce. I come from a background in news media, specifically newspapers. Let me tell you that EVERY news organization, even at the local level, needs full stack developers. Almost none of them need, for example, an Angular.js specialist.
Larger organizations, especially proper software companies, can afford to diversify their workforce into highly focused and manageable skillets. But, that does not mean there is no place for the full stack engineer in these companies. Positions like Operations Managers, Data Architects, Heads of Technology, Directors of Application Development and even some Project Managers are filled very well by candidates with full stack engineering backgrounds.
So its important to note that these positions do exist in organizations of all sizes and in many cases, they are a fast moving career path into management. I do recommend this path post grad--I've been working as a full stack developer for nearly a decade, and the biggest struggle I've had is having to turn down work. That's exactly why I started this project, because I have more jobs coming across my desk than I can apply for.
In my personal experience recently as Head of Technology for a startup company, conveyance of skills really was a big challenge for us. We needed highly capable engineers, and headhunters were throwing us lots of unqualified talent. That's a tough pill to swallow when you are paying many thousands of dollars just to _search_ for talent on a startup's budget. I felt that had I been given some very quality insight into the skills of the talent pool, I could have done a much better job of vetting the candidates myself for our specific needs--another concept that pushed me to start this project!
-Casey
What do we call people that are actually full-stack, rather than just the front-end client/server parts?
Full-stack it seems, has become a diluted term now.
Now I'm learning biomedical NLP.
So what do we call me? Stuffed-full-stack dev?
There's more to life than knowing Rails and Coffeescript.
Take me for example...
I've been programming since the 80's (started at 7), I have 16 years experience with Linux as both a desktop and a server OS, I've programmed for money (often as side jobs) in VB6, Delphi, C# and PHP/Python.
I've put entire systems into production from design to deployment, some of which have up-time’s measured in years.
I know database design (I can normalise, understand the value of key constraints, views, triggers etc), I know a couple of different PHP frameworks (I currently use Laravel for most things with composer and vagrant). I know my way around JS mostly (I generally just pick up what I need on the front end), I have an excellent knowledge of HTML and CSS.
I also have a good grasp of SME networking (I ran the network for a multi-occupancy shared office building as well as been in-house developer).
That is about a tenth of the crap I've picked up over the years.
Am I a "full stack developer"?
For example, for the Bradford and Galt Consulting Python/Django job... "some Javascript". This does not scream "full stack" job to me, "some Javascript". What do they use for DevOps? Will I get to write C or Go? Unless they use the SomeJavascriptMVC.js framework, I'm guessing their JS is... mostly trivial. To say nothing of DevSales or project management responsibilities.
We've got a proprietary algorithm in development that identifies the scope of both a candidates skills and the skills required by a position.
Without divulging too much secret sauce, we'll be filtering out positions that do not meet our definition of "full stack" and we'll also be conveying to candidates just how "full stack" each position is with a rating system.
Technically the "generic OSS based web" stack starts at debugging Linux kernel code (and sys admin coughDevOpscough), up through the OSI layer (with particular stops at the application(?)/HTTP-serving layer (and supporting code! aka: breaking out C to write a faster Rails router) and then again at the WebKit/Blink rendering engines, plus v8/JavascriptCore-whatever-Safari-names it, through CSS (Safari's CSS JIT work anyone?) through behaviors of said implementations. Plus add a stack of project management, requirements analysis, business analyst, and product design/UX.
To make this problem worse that's just one of many stacks. The native app development stack. The good boys and girls doing work with custom hardware (robotics, waldos etc) with realtime hardware requirements for example. A "generic MS based stack" which behaves similar in parts with very noticeable differences in places. Etc.
How-some-ever I suspect most, if not all of your employers will be looking for some sliver of the "full stack". Like the employer I mentioned earlier, whose definition of full stack is "Mostly Server-side Python but you should be OK at simple HTML/JS/CSS too". Or the new startups looking for people who can "write Javascript on the serverside too!"
