How does devRant feel about the title “Full Stack Developer” or “Full Stack Engineer”?

Full Stack == "Somebody who can get by in the entire UI-to-backend-pipeline, but performs in one or two areas disproportionately well while performing more poorly in the others, or they have no specialization at all"

My preferred wording is:

"Back-end engineer with full stack experience"

"Front-end engineer with full stack experience"

etc

Honestly after 12 years earning money as dev in various positions it doesn’t fucking matter.

@vane add another decade and it still doesn’t matter.

dunno, let's ask @devRant.

honestly I don't have any particular problem/thought with it.

But when I see "devops + full stack" jobs listings, that triggers something

We need a DevOps Rockstar who will never sleep and take shit pay!

@bahua Don't forget to include ninja or unicorn somewhere in the title!

But what would I wrap my title up to otherwise?

I'm responsible for UI, Backend, DB, API, integrations and DevOps for several projects using different languages and stacks.

What would you call me?

I'm a full stack developer + DB admin + server admin + desktop developer + anything else remotely related to code

@BobbyTables I'm pretty sure you also invented all the code right?

@aquabums Many people assume I did. Though I wish I could punch the previous devs many days.

@C0D4 I'm in the same boat. About 8 years ago I co-founded a software company as the only software engineer. 8 years later, we have ~60 GitHub repositories for all the code involved, from UI to server-side business logic to databases. I wrote a HUGE percentage of that code, probably near 80-90%. While I'll argue all day that my front-end skills are quite good, I'll readily admit that my back-end skills are stronger. It's accurate for me to call myself a full-stack dev. I can complete whatever needs to be done and do it well, but I also admit that there's stuff about it (including every facet of what I do) that I don't quite know. I'm not suffering from Dunning-Kruger. My JavaScript and CSS knowledge are not up to date to the latest and greatest. They're dated, mostly because I've been full-stack and haven't had time to keep up/specialize. That's the full-stack weakness.

So, I'm a back-end engineer with [a whole lot of] full stack experience.

/shrug

Who's that devRant guy again?

I dislike the titles.

They really have no meaning.

What stack? Cobol plus 25 years of hacks, workarounds and broken migration attempts can be a stack, too. ;)

I think that a thorough explanation of experience and where the persons comfort zones are better.

Let the people specialize, and utilize their knowledge / experience whenever possible.

I'd say call yourself whatever you want. If you have the skills to back it up than who cares what others think. It's there problem not yours.

define the "Stack".
if you master all of it you can call yourself a full-stack dev.

I can't call someone fullstack-anything if they don't know anything about infrastructure. If you can't deploy your tech from baremetal, you're only part of the stack.

There's really only Full Stack Overflow.

@cephei let's say WebDev - for the sake of argument.

I consider a WebDev; Fullstack when they can, by their own:

- UI / UX Design
html / css / templating / colour theory, understand user flows, 3 click rules, user profiling, visual mockups, and design a website around these concepts

- javascript development
Decent understanding on front end javascript and interaction with the dom, able to allow and build UI interaction on any element as required.

- backend development
This varies on language a bit but able to follow methodologies relevant and build out business logic appropriate to the tasks at hand that the front end will require to interact with, also have to connect to APis ( rest / soap ), write APis them selves and hook into relevant databases and infrastructure where needed.

- infrastructure / sysadmin
Able to build and secure a server from nothing more then a minimal server os installation (not install nodejs and run npm start), setup firewalls, databases, and services needed to connect and use the server in its location (cloud, on prem, or a private intranet) as needed and able to move it if required.

Basically if you can take a raw dedicated server configure it to the infrastructure required, put an operational website built from scratch or 10 on it and maintain server patches and code releases going forward - preferably with ci/CD in some manner or another) I'll happily accept you as a full stack dev in the web department.

If you can't build, and maintain the entire ( and I mean *entire* ) stack, you are not a full stack dev, but a dev with knowledge of areas within the stack.

Now this stack example may not be relevant to your stack specifically, but I would still expect you to handle the entire stack from start to finish and maintain it.

The only thing I don't like about them is how non-standard the definitions are. I agree with a lot of the comments here, in that full stack to me means you can do everything required to ship a software product yourself. Given enough time, of course. Where it gets confusing is when people take subsets of "all-the-things" and call _that_ full stack.

@dontPanic you know, that @devRant guy is "the one". that one