I have had rather heated discussions with supervisors on this very subject. Full-Stack is indeed almost universally just a label for (in my experience primarily frontend) developers who dabble in "the other side" just enough to get by. Backend developers tend to refuse work on the frontend - at most, they'll hack something in that just about works and then claim to know just how "easy" frontend is, and thus why backend is worth so much more. It's a silly notion and it reinforces some heavily unbalanced attitudes. Especially when, in turn, frontend developers are expected to do their own backend work because reasons.
To me, Full-Stack is an entirely different skillset, and specifically addresses two important architectural aspects: In-depth understanding of the communication between backend and frontend (i.e. front-facing API design, which a great lot of people are awful at), and in-depth knowledge of both frontend and backend. A full-stack developer is not just a "jack of all trades, master of none", they're sufficiently experienced in multiple parts of the stack equally. Juniors do exist, but they're approaching their education and training vastly differently from single-aspect juniors.
There's something to be said for experts in either backend or frontend, obviously, in that they may have an easier path to further depth in their field than full-stack developers, but the skillset they develop also requires such depth. Whereas full-stack developers tend to work shallower and instead have a skillset that more easily enables deep dives where needed.
In summary: Full-stack developers make better architects, but single-aspect developers make better programmers.
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I have had rather heated discussions with supervisors on this very subject. Full-Stack is indeed almost universally just a label for (in my experience primarily frontend) developers who dabble in "the other side" just enough to get by. Backend developers tend to refuse work on the frontend - at most, they'll hack something in that just about works and then claim to know just how "easy" frontend is, and thus why backend is worth so much more. It's a silly notion and it reinforces some heavily unbalanced attitudes. Especially when, in turn, frontend developers are expected to do their own backend work because reasons.
To me, Full-Stack is an entirely different skillset, and specifically addresses two important architectural aspects: In-depth understanding of the communication between backend and frontend (i.e. front-facing API design, which a great lot of people are awful at), and in-depth knowledge of both frontend and backend. A full-stack developer is not just a "jack of all trades, master of none", they're sufficiently experienced in multiple parts of the stack equally. Juniors do exist, but they're approaching their education and training vastly differently from single-aspect juniors.
There's something to be said for experts in either backend or frontend, obviously, in that they may have an easier path to further depth in their field than full-stack developers, but the skillset they develop also requires such depth. Whereas full-stack developers tend to work shallower and instead have a skillset that more easily enables deep dives where needed.
In summary: Full-stack developers make better architects, but single-aspect developers make better programmers.