How long will the Full Stack Developer bubble last?
Most of the companies are looking for Full Stack Developers (FSD) for web development.
Today’s expectation for an FSD is an expert developer who can work on all different application layers.
From Database -> Backend -> Frontend. Many companies prefer to have a Full Stack developer over a mix of Backend, Integration, or Frontend developer.
A true software engineer is not a software engineer if he is not aware and capable of working on all layers. But Recruiters and companies have different perspectives.
They expect that an FSD to be an expert on all the technologies used at different layers.
FSD is great for the following kinds of projects. Maintenance projects, simple applications & prototype applications. They don’t need to be experts in complex integration, 3rd party dependencies, uptime, performance tuning, etc.
In my opinion, when it comes to building a complex, distributed, reliable, functional, and user-friendly application, FSD only is a wrong choice. Programming is an art like doctors are curing bodies, but we still have specialists like ENT(ear, nose, and throat), skin, etc.
It's good to have a team with different expertise.
Frontend developers work on pixel details, fetch data using services, styling pages with CSS.
The backend developer needs to take care of component integrations, handling failures: Caching, reusability, performance, best practices, design patterns, infrastructure dependencies.
I have seen many front-end developers who are good at HTML, CSS, and JavaScript and know their ways in and out for everything around the front-end. But are clueless when there are problems like why wrong or no price is shown. Or why certain services are not responding.
Unfortunately, today’s recruiters and companies are taking full stack developer as
“Jack of All trade, master of none”
It references a developer who has dabbled in many skills rather than gaining expertise by focusing on one.
They go with a checklist full of all the backend and frontend technologies and ask the developers about their yearly experience. They think that hiring FSDs will be enough for having a successful application delivery.
I have seen many projects failed because of a lack of experts for the right job. Performance, scalability issues because of incorrect data modeling and choices of wrong tools. etc.
When a Backend expert is missing, having only Jack of all trades and a master of none can sometimes hurt the project with severe damage.
I think FSD fashion is still sustaining because of senior developers with strong backend knowledge. They learned and adapted to front-end technologies and fulfilling the knowledge gap where needed.
Today young developers are going towards Full stack development, away towards “Jack of all trade and master of none”.
It's good to learn different things, but you should be an expert at least one. Backend strength is reducing slowly.
I ask myself, will we have a reliable backend aware development force after a couple of decades? You can see jobs specifically for backend developers are coming now and then. Is it the sign?
