Lead Developer, business owner, US Army veteran. I build things for the web. My website is a bunch of HTML pages that didn't need a framework. Yours can be too!
Language and evolving connotations over time are a funny thing. 10 Years ago companies were all looking for "Full-Stack" developers, and I railed against the term.
The reason? What they really meant, was "come do two jobs for us at the same pay". It was a transparent attempt by the company to gain an employee that will be over-worked and underpaid, all while being told they were "better" than the average developer. They were rock-star ninja unicorns who could do it all. Stroking developer's egos and cracking the whip of unrealistic expectations was more cost-effective than hiring two specialists.
I was a frontend "only" specialist at the time, and "just the frontend" sentiment caused my impostor syndrome to tell me I was "less" because I wasn't full-stack.
So I worked on it. Even though I disagreed with it, that's what companies wanted and I needed to make myself as marketable as possible. I exposed myself to Node at first, but also drew on my experience from school in Java and sought-out positions where I would be given the freedom to have input on the backend while specializing in the frontend.
It's great to be on a team where you are a contributor across the stack, leading in your specialization, but able to jump-in and work a story in the backend if you need to, or to transition from frontend tech lead to overall lead for a project when you lose the backend guy (This did happen to me at one point, and the team was fine. I promise I didn't ruin the backend :D ).
I thought I had gotten to my good place. I am a full-stack developer, with a specialization in frontend technologies and architecture, but able to jump into Java or Python or Node or whatever and feel decently comfortable, as long as I have a good backend lead to work with, or experience with the project.
Then I started reading how, through some twisted game of telephone over the last decade, instead of blaming companies for being cheap and pushing engineers into "full-stack" roles, the community now blamed other members of the community for claiming to have skills across the stack.
We've turned on each-other and calling myself a "Frontend-specialized Full-Stack Engineer" was planting a flag on one side of an issue or not, probably causing the frontend specialists to think I'm not good enough, and the "full-stack" camp to think I'm "just a frontend guy".
I'm no-less of a specialist because I like to work on database schemas from time to time. I'm no-less a generalist because most of my time is spent studying current trends in frontend Javascript. I'm just a software engineer with a certain set of experience. I hate the territorial need to stake out "good" and "bad". Can't we all take a little joy in the fact that we all know some of the special words to recite to make the magic box do things? That alone is fun in-and-of-itself. Just because I'm in Ravenclaw and you're in Gryffindor doesn't mean we have to look down on one another (Who am I kidding.... we'd all be in Ravenclaw hahaha).
Except those DBAs. Those guys are DEFINITELY Slytherin (Kidding!).
What they really meant, was "come do two jobs for us at the same pay". It was a transparent attempt by the company to gain an employee that will be over-worked and underpaid
friggin THIS. i've worked at several shops where "full-stack" was bandied around like a good thing, and in every single case what it meant was "we care more about our bottom line than the sanity of the schmucks burdened with slapping new features on top of our our out-of-date, unidiomatic, unmaintainable garbage heap of a codebase consisting of python written by php devs and javascript written by python devs."
i won't stop anyone from calling themself a "full-stack" dev, but would caution, in the strongest and sweariest of terms, against anyone taking a job advertised as such.
When I first started making websites (before anybody called them "apps") there was a lot of fuss around how web developers weren't "real" developers so perhaps I've always had a chip on my shoulder about the gate keeping.
I've now had the pleasure of working with devs who have a lot of different strengths and I've grown to really appreciate the differences. Now if I can just remember that wholesome attitude next time I see a pull request I don't like. ;)
Lead Developer, business owner, US Army veteran. I build things for the web. My website is a bunch of HTML pages that didn't need a framework. Yours can be too!
Oh man... That chip on the shoulder is REAL. I STILL look out for the phrase "just the frontend" and it brings me back to discussions about Javascript as a "toy" language or how "web developers are JUST writing markup".
To this day I find it. I had a manager try to waterfall out a project, and allocated literally 5 days of work to the frontend (don't worry, we got a Scrum Master REAL quick after this haha... our manager's great about supporting us, even if it's not his experience after 20+ years of java-land).
But it's led me to really fight against anyone who tries to be a gate-keeper. Development thrives the more people we can get. It's the old guy's job to make sure the junior/mid sect is growing and getting better, not to slap them down when they make a mistake :D
They also tend to have great insight on the latest tools, and we can temper that with knowledge of pitfalls we passed long ago. (I feel like "The Circle of Life" should be playing right now...)
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Language and evolving connotations over time are a funny thing. 10 Years ago companies were all looking for "Full-Stack" developers, and I railed against the term.
The reason? What they really meant, was "come do two jobs for us at the same pay". It was a transparent attempt by the company to gain an employee that will be over-worked and underpaid, all while being told they were "better" than the average developer. They were rock-star ninja unicorns who could do it all. Stroking developer's egos and cracking the whip of unrealistic expectations was more cost-effective than hiring two specialists.
I was a frontend "only" specialist at the time, and "just the frontend" sentiment caused my impostor syndrome to tell me I was "less" because I wasn't full-stack.
So I worked on it. Even though I disagreed with it, that's what companies wanted and I needed to make myself as marketable as possible. I exposed myself to Node at first, but also drew on my experience from school in Java and sought-out positions where I would be given the freedom to have input on the backend while specializing in the frontend.
It's great to be on a team where you are a contributor across the stack, leading in your specialization, but able to jump-in and work a story in the backend if you need to, or to transition from frontend tech lead to overall lead for a project when you lose the backend guy (This did happen to me at one point, and the team was fine. I promise I didn't ruin the backend :D ).
I thought I had gotten to my good place. I am a full-stack developer, with a specialization in frontend technologies and architecture, but able to jump into Java or Python or Node or whatever and feel decently comfortable, as long as I have a good backend lead to work with, or experience with the project.
Then I started reading how, through some twisted game of telephone over the last decade, instead of blaming companies for being cheap and pushing engineers into "full-stack" roles, the community now blamed other members of the community for claiming to have skills across the stack.
We've turned on each-other and calling myself a "Frontend-specialized Full-Stack Engineer" was planting a flag on one side of an issue or not, probably causing the frontend specialists to think I'm not good enough, and the "full-stack" camp to think I'm "just a frontend guy".
I'm no-less of a specialist because I like to work on database schemas from time to time. I'm no-less a generalist because most of my time is spent studying current trends in frontend Javascript. I'm just a software engineer with a certain set of experience. I hate the territorial need to stake out "good" and "bad". Can't we all take a little joy in the fact that we all know some of the special words to recite to make the magic box do things? That alone is fun in-and-of-itself. Just because I'm in Ravenclaw and you're in Gryffindor doesn't mean we have to look down on one another (Who am I kidding.... we'd all be in Ravenclaw hahaha).
Except those DBAs. Those guys are DEFINITELY Slytherin (Kidding!).
Nah, Slytherin's aren't smart enough to be DBAs. ;)
friggin THIS. i've worked at several shops where "full-stack" was bandied around like a good thing, and in every single case what it meant was "we care more about our bottom line than the sanity of the schmucks burdened with slapping new features on top of our our out-of-date, unidiomatic, unmaintainable garbage heap of a codebase consisting of python written by php devs and javascript written by python devs."
i won't stop anyone from calling themself a "full-stack" dev, but would caution, in the strongest and sweariest of terms, against anyone taking a job advertised as such.
When I first started making websites (before anybody called them "apps") there was a lot of fuss around how web developers weren't "real" developers so perhaps I've always had a chip on my shoulder about the gate keeping.
I've now had the pleasure of working with devs who have a lot of different strengths and I've grown to really appreciate the differences. Now if I can just remember that wholesome attitude next time I see a pull request I don't like. ;)
(also, I think you are spot on about the DBAs)
Oh man... That chip on the shoulder is REAL. I STILL look out for the phrase "just the frontend" and it brings me back to discussions about Javascript as a "toy" language or how "web developers are JUST writing markup".
To this day I find it. I had a manager try to waterfall out a project, and allocated literally 5 days of work to the frontend (don't worry, we got a Scrum Master REAL quick after this haha... our manager's great about supporting us, even if it's not his experience after 20+ years of java-land).
But it's led me to really fight against anyone who tries to be a gate-keeper. Development thrives the more people we can get. It's the old guy's job to make sure the junior/mid sect is growing and getting better, not to slap them down when they make a mistake :D
They also tend to have great insight on the latest tools, and we can temper that with knowledge of pitfalls we passed long ago. (I feel like "The Circle of Life" should be playing right now...)