ONCE BEATEN IS WORTH TWO RAW ONES? TALKING ABOUT FULL STACK DEVELOPERS

“Jack of all trades” — is this not the dream of an employer? This expression best suits the position of Full Stack developer…
STOP. But is everything so clear? Is it worth it to consider such a specialist as jack of all trades? Can you “kick the ass” to two (or even more) narrow specialists when you get this person? What should you demand from Full Stack Developer? Let’s talk about it, and not only in the context of web development.

Who is this hero?

Who is Full Stack Developer? No, this is not the kind of person who is able to replace the whole team of specialists and deliver the finished product alone. Although this should not be completely rejected, because a full-scale full stack is able to do MVP. Another question is how. After all, as they say, “the devil is in the details. ” And just the same narrow details can be thoroughly understood only by a narrow specialist (in our case, Frontend and Backend).

And what happens? And it turns out that a real Full Stack is a person who can take a productive part in the work of specialists of various fields. He must effectively interact with all members of the team, be aware of the work of specialists in different directions and be able to express himself in a way accessible to every team member.

If the applicant, posing himself as a full stack developer, claims that he can do everything by himself, without a team, here are two options:

• You are incredibly lucky. It’s like finding a white rhino.
• The specialist is a little cunning. He either does not fully appreciate his capabilities or is just lying.

So you need to understand that Full Stack should not be considered as a superhero who will take over and help you save a lot of money. This does not happen.

SO WHY IS THERE SUCH A NEED FOR “UNIVERSAL SOLDIERS”

Everything depends on the circumstances, your wishes, and the meaning you put into this concept.

Think about finding a Full Stack Developer, if:

• You have a startup with a limited budget.
   But it is necessary to understand that the MVP created by the “multi-cant” will develop further. So, it is necessary to put a certain potential in it. Therefore, the task of the Full Stack should be set not to solve problems here and now, but for the future.

• You for some reason need to reduce the number of employees of the company without productivity loss. But you should understand that miracles do not happen, and some indicators will shed.
• You are looking for a promising developer whom you are ready to promote in your company. Plus of Full Stack is that his basis gives him an opportunity to develop himself in different directions. With the right approach (and of course, appropriate motivation) of such a specialist, you can grow a “mega monster” in a certain area.
• You need to coordinate the team, eliminate misunderstandings and disagreements. And here the ability of the Full Stack to work productively with specialists in different directions comes in handy.

HOW TO FIND FULL STACK EXPERTS?

To find such a candidate, you need to know who to look for. As practice and modern realities shows, Full Stack Developer should be good in the following directions (the list is very, very exemplary):

• Server administration and hosting. Here is a small part of the skills in this direction. Those are working with databases, using the file system, scaling, managing server programs, and shells, working with permissions and firewalls, etc. Often, Full Stack requires knowledge of DevOps.
• Business logic. At a minimum, such a specialist should understand the essence of the benefits brought by the application, how to implement the tasks to get the profit, etc.
• Data modeling. Here, at a minimum, the specialist must foresee different situations and minimize use of various “crutches” in the finished product at the level of business logic and higher classes.
• Back End. You cannot do this job without knowledge of the language (as an option PHP), frameworks, caching technologies, API, etc.
• Database. It is important for Developer to be familiar with the concepts of relational and non-relational databases and know their differences, possibilities, and instances when and what should be used.
• Front End. In modern realities, the list of knowledge should include NodeJS and NPM, Webpack, Browserify, Rollup, Yarn, transpilers, and preprocessors for different languages, frameworks, and many other “Front End” staff.

In addition, knowledge of design, logging, mobile development, writing unit tests, information security, etc. is also required.

Perhaps, an illustration from Scott Hadfield’s article, CTO and co-founder of the “Hello Pretty” startup (again, the list is far from complete) will help you delve into the knowledge and skills of such a specialist.

IF THERE IS SOMETHING FULL STACK DO NOT KNOW …

We see that such a specialist should have a lot of different knowledge. Therefore, it is important to understand that it is not worthwhile to demand all the technologies, programming languages and other things at the mega-pro level. If the person has a common idea about the subject, and if the person can quickly understand it on a deep level, perhaps this is the very Full Stack that you are looking for.

In general, as practice shows, such a specialist very rarely has to apply all skills and knowledge in each of the areas. Each company has its own specifics.

IT IS NOT AN EASY TASK TO GET FULL STACK TO YOUR COMPANY

It is widely believed that finding Full Stack is very, very difficult. And our experience confirms this. Indeed, such experts today are worth their weight in gold. They are either already employed or meticulously sifting through offers from lined up employers.

And do not look that on the same LinkedIn by the corresponding request over 2000 questionnaires are issued. Full stacks are different. Many of them, having mastered LAMP once, consider themselves to be “universal soldiers” ready for feats. But no. We know how fast IT in general and each area, in particular, are developing today.

When searching for such specialists, as they say, a creative approach is necessary. And some experience in hunting would only help.

We have these in Indigo. Contact us and we will provide all possible assistance in finding your Full Stack Developer.

author: Denis Malov