This person says about Full Stack developers that they don't need to be an expert on all fields (front end and back end), and that they should know "the basics, or maybe the advanced basics but rarely everything".

Is this true? If it is, then I will feel more relieved knowing this, as I want to be a Full Stack developer.

Of course it's true nobody knows everything.  You should know the knowledge required to get a junior role might seem vast, it is!  but that's a drop in the ocean compared to the level of knowledge that a principal engineer who's being doing this for years might know.  And even those guys don't know everything, far from it.

A senior / principal engineer will be expected to take on most tasks and many they won't know how to solve it or have even used that tech before - they'll quickly learn as and when they need it.  This is what I do now.  I don't learn something because I might need it.  I'll wait until I do need it and then learn.

 

As I've said before most "full-stack" developers I've met aren't what I'd call really full stack.  They're usually good at front-end or backend and know a little bit about the other side.  I've seen loads of awful frontend code and UX decisions from "full-stack" developers who aren't really.  I imagine back-end engineers have said the same.

I'm comfortable creating my own services on the server side like a GraphQL services / lambda that talks to a DB, comfortable deploying that to AWS and setting up API Gateway etc, but I'm far from a full-stack dev because my skillset is so heavily weighted to the front-end.  Being able to do a bit of the other side doesn't make one full-stack.  IMO you should be as competent as the engineers in those areas and that's rarely the case.

Ironically two people I work with are exceptionally good at both areas but still label themselves as front-end devs.

Full-stack is often a marketing buzzword to try and ask for a higher salary, that's what I've seen.  But as for learning the full-stack at least at a fundamental level I think that's a good thing but don't feel you have to try and become a full-stack dev.  I'd still suggest being more niche for your first role and look at front-end or backend and specialise.

Edited February 22, 20206 yr by rbrtsmith

Thanks, Robert!

2 hours ago, rbrtsmith said:

I'd still suggest being more niche for your first role and look at front-end or backend and specialise.

This. It's very rare for someone to be an expert in everything, the web landscape is so vast now that it'd take a life time to master everything, and by which time you'd have retired anyway!