
Ask HN: Which Skill's Make a Full-Stack Developer? - fullstackjob
I&#x27;m building the Full Stack Developer Job Board (https:&#x2F;&#x2F;fullstackjob.com) and would like to know, which skill&#x27;s are needed to be a Full-Stack Developer ? I don&#x27;t ask about which languages or frameworks, but eg:
- Backend, Frontend, Devops, DBA
Something missing for you ? To much ?
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Adamantcheese
As far as I know, "full stack" just refers to being able to do both front end
and back end work, where back end work consists of core website code, database
administration, and devops. Full stack is a really broad classification that
is defined with other really broad classifications.

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Cactus2018
> Ignoring languages and frameworks

Stacks are organization specific. Wikipedia's definition at
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solution_stack](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solution_stack)
is nice.

For fun:
[https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=L...](https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=LAMP%20Stack,MEAN%20Stack,WAMP%20Stack,WIMP%20Stack,MERN%20Stack)

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fullstackjob
Once more thanks to all input, which is really helpfully. I think, even if
this is not representative voting here... For sure we can say, that Full-Stack
has no very well defined meaning. Everybody on both sides (Developer and
Recruiter) has other opinion on what it exactly means for him.

On my Job Board for Full Stack Developers (
[https://fullstackjob.com](https://fullstackjob.com) ) I try to handle it the
way, that requirements are on both "sides", back and front end at least.
That's not exactly my point of view, but the only common denominator I can
see.

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fullstackjob
Thanks for all answers I got yet :-)

What I can see from job submissions on my side project
[https://fullstackjob.com](https://fullstackjob.com) is, that for at least 50%
of posting companies/recruiters, Full Stack is "just a bunch of skill's". For
mostly all of them it includes both Front- and Backend. SOme of them include
DB knowledge, but not always clear, if they mean "just query lang" or DBA
skills.

In my opinion, when I hire somebody Full Stack, it is mainly about the fact,
that this guy then can understand a complex software from front- to back and
forward, but not that he can develop the whole thing.

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arjunvpaul
FYI - [http://sijinjoseph.com/programmer-competency-
matrix/](http://sijinjoseph.com/programmer-competency-matrix/)

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lettergram
> which skill's are needed to be a Full-Stack Developer ? I don't ask about
> which languages or frameworks, but eg: - Backend, Frontend, Devops, DBA
> Something missing for you ? To much ?

I'm a little confused about what you are asking...

What I look for in resumes are:

1\. Do they have any projects I can review (preferably open source and on
github)

2\. What frameworks are they familiar with

3\. How much experience (often signaled by the frameworks)

4\. Do they have experience managing databases, cloud infrastructure, front
end, etc. Also, usually signaled by the frameworks

~~~
rimliu
Would you mind why are you focusing on frameworks instead of languages? To me
it sounds like choosing driver by the make of the last car they have driven
instead of just having a driver’s license.

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techbio
If I understand correctly, you are looking for categories of specialties which
may fall under the broad umbrella of full-stack. First, mobile and web front-
ends are distinct skill sets. Aside from your list, it may also make sense to
include some basic networking skill, knowledge of network protocols like
TCP/IP, HTTP, and familiarity with relevant operating systems.

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cromulent
Full stack means every system involved in the request-response cycle.

A lot of architectures are simply divided into front-end and back-end, but not
all, and there's often ancillary systems involved (such as caching, external
data imports, etc).

It means you aren't a specialist - you can work on anything.

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winrid
You can take business context and build everything from the pixel perfect UI
to scalable/maintainable backend code and architecture. You can keep up with
tech trends in both areas.

This is very hard, and does not scale long term depending on the product.

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acct1771
Knowing an apostrophe doesn't mean "holy shit here comes an S".

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tmaly
_Good testing_ Clean maintainable code _Good documentation_ Good Communication
skills

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mikekchar
My opinion is that all general programmers have the skills necessary to be a
"Full-Stack Developer". For me it's just being able to deal with databases and
not really minding particularly much what kind of programming systems you are
working on.

On the contrary, there are people who specialise in specific things. So you
might specialise in database issues and want to work primarily on the back
end. Or you might specialise in UX, etc and want to specialise in the front
end. Some very junior people have only been exposed to programming in very
limited situations (for example writing some javascript and knocking up some
HTML) and may want to advertise that this is what they are comfortable with
for now, so may call themselves a "Frontend developer"

Some hiring managers/companies believe that there is a class of programmer who
can do "simple" things and take the load off the general programmer. They feel
they can hire this class of programmer and save money. My experience is that
this doesn't ever work out. It's fine to hire junior people who become full
stack developers eventually, but hiring someone who lacks the ability/interest
to take it further usually costs more in productivity than they save in
salary. I really don't like this idea of trying to hire "Frontend developers"
as a kind of "lesser programmer" (as opposed to specialists programmers who
just want to concentrate on UX).

The TL;DR: "Full Stack" just means "programmer" in my books.

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cosmos05
I'd say everything related to building a website on the internet.

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golangch
I think important is, and that depends a bit about the role, that a full-stack
dev can do everything needed in his role, related to development. So he can do
some DB migration, if needed, he can do deployment without the need of a
sysadmin. But a good Full Stack Dev has also to be specialist in eg Backend or
Frontend. Just knowing a bit from everything after assisting 20 Udemy videos
is not the point :-)

