What to learn? Frontend, backend or fullstack?
We’re pretty biased here at Velocity360, but we feel unequivocally that students should become fullstack as quickly as they can.
The traditional path for learning to code is often frontend -> backend -> mobile. You’ll start with the absolute basics and build up each set of skills over time. This isn’t necessarily wrong, especially if you have literally no coding experience at all. The reality is that it will take you much, much longer to get to the point where you’re employable or can build projects for yourself.
Instead, dive right in and go fullstack right away, focusing on the most important parts. Why?
If you go fullstack, you are the complete programmer. You are self-reliant and can handle almost anything yourself. This is immensely powerful. If you only learn one side of the programming equation, you will always need someone else to help you out. In many fields, there is a great advantage to specializing, but when it comes to being a programmer in 2016, being able to do it all yourself is more valuable.
If you want to go work at a startup or a hot tech company, they might be looking to fill an individual need. You can do that, of course, but imagine if you can target companies that need someone for their full technology stack. Now you have much more leverage — you can build the entire thing yourself. This is what leads to a higher salary or bigger contracts. You can really influence the product. You make others dependent on your skills. You’re in control of your career and life.
If you’ve got your own idea for a product or service, you can just build it yourself. You’re limited only by your imagination and by your ability to constantly learn more.
At Velocity360, we know what companies want because we’ve been hired to build applications for them. Everyone wants the total package for a fully functional website or app. This is only achievable if you’re fullstack.
To learn about what we’re doing at Velocity, check us out @ velocity360.io