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Discussion on: How much do you need to know or learn before calling yourself a developer?

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Dustin King

If you can plan and write programs to solve problems, you're a developer. If you can fix bugs in programs, you're a developer.

To do this you would typically need to know the basic syntax and semantics of one or more programming languages. It's okay to make mistakes-- that's what compilers and testing are for. It's okay to not know every library function or obscure language feature-- that's what Google and StackOverflow (or the docs for whatever language you're using) are for.

If I could give you a problem like FizzBuzz, or a problem like "the software does X but it's supposed to do Y" and you could solve it, you're a developer.

I don't know the answers to the specific types of developer you mention, because I've been more of a generalist. But I'd say if you can convince someone to hire you as a front-end/back-end/full-stack developer, you're that kind of developer. What it takes to get hired is a whole other topic :)