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I'm in a team of 3 in a small to medium sized company (over 50 engineers). We all work as full stack engineers.. but I think the definition of full stack here is getting super bloated. Let me give u an example. My team hold a few production apps, and we just launched a new one. The whole team (the 3 of us) are fully responsible on it from planning, design, database model, api, frontend (a react page spa), an extra client. Ok, so all this seems normal to a full stack dev.

Now, we also handle provisioning infra in aws using terraform, doing deployments, building a CI/CD pipeline using jenkins, monitoring, writing tests, building an analytics dashboard.

Recently our tech writer also left, so now we are also handling writing feature releases.

Few days ago, we also had a meeting where they sort of discussed that the maintenance of the engineering shared services, e.g. jenkins servers, (and about 2-3 other services) will now be split between teams in a shared board, previously this was handled only be team leads, but now they want to delegate it down.

And ofcourse not to mention supporting the app itself and updating bug tickets with findings.

I feel like my daily responsiblities are becoming the job responsibilities of at least 3 jobs.

Is this what full stack engineering looks like in your company? Do u handle everything from app design, building, cloud, ops, analytics etc..

Comments
  • 5
    I think you missed out cleaning desks and toilets
  • 2
    Yeah, sounds like a normal day at the office in small teams in small organizations. We do divide the tasks a bit between us, so not everyone is doing everything, but basically the more seniority, the more you got on your plate.
  • 3
    50 people and all full stack... Sounds unreasonable to me.
  • 3
    A bit of a 'full stack aside" :

    My baseline for full stack is: "Can do some stuff on front and back end."

    Could that potentially be both people who suck and not? Yup, just like every other job title that's how it works....

    Ok as for you, it really depends on how much work that is. I work in a shop with 3 devs... so everything falls on us, but I absolutely can understanding wanting to focus.

    Personally I would get a bit of an uneasy feeling about pushing 'everything' down randomly ... sorta creeping towards an unfocused amalgam of "just some computer guys" and lack of focus for individuals. And concerns about folks up the chain really not knowing / caring about what these things even mean. "Hey you make changes to the website, can you fix my blackberry?"
  • 3
    @some-dev, but really, in a company of 50+ SE's there should be more defined roles - that or your company holds way too many prod apps. There's something wrong there, at least it smells a bit fishy... at least in our company we are assigned into 2-3 person teams each with one prod app we're responsible for, and divide the work regarding that app between us. It's a lot of work, especially for the seniors, but it's not crazy.
  • 0
    Yes.
  • 2
    I know your pain. I've been doing stuff from requirement gathering to application and DB design. Coding, deployment, infrastructure management and security.

    I'm only partially competent in one or two of those.

    I just want to sit my ass and learn a bit of nuxt 🙁.
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