
A Full-Stack Web Team Will Provide Much-Needed Breadth And Depth To Your Startup - vanwilder77
http://techcrunch.com/2012/12/01/how-to-hire-a-full-stack-web-team/
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derrida
I call bullshit on recent appropriations of the phrase "full stack".

If you have written a disassembler and known an assembly language, have
notable programs in C and what ever higher level languages you are using, and
you've written a compiler in the past, cool, I respect that. You are a "full
stack developer": any new language is just a tool you pick up. Most
technologies become tools you learn to apply from basic principles you have
absorbed.

But I see this word get thrown around so often I don't believe people asking
for it know it when they see it, or the people claiming they are, are.

~~~
adrianhoward
There's a phrase in the design world - the unicorn designer.

These are designers needed for the job adverts that require somebody who is a
great visual designer and a great user researcher and a great user tester and
knows HTML5/CSS and knows JavaScript and knows PHP5 and ...

So called because you're about as likely to find one as you are a unicorn ;-)

There's a need for specialists and generalists on teams. Startups often need
more generalists at the start - both because of cost issues and because of the
communications overhead that specialists can cause. But trying to hire
mythical employees who are _excellent_ at _everything_ is often a...
suboptimal approach.

~~~
mitchellbryson
I don't think the unicorn designer myth is true. We exist, there's just lack
of people willing to pay for it. I design and develop and still find it
difficult to find work. As you mentioned, it's a cost issue.

As an aside, I hate the idea of a visual designer that doesn't know markup,
and someone else being responsible for building it - this does not make sense.

~~~
adrianhoward
It's not just a cost issue - depending on the size of the unicorn.

For example I know _nobody_ who is _really_ good at all of:

* user testing

* interaction design

* visual design

* HTML/CSS

* JavaScript

* user research

* branding

* information architecture

* cognitive psychology

* ethnography

* marketing

I know folk who are really good at a subset. I know folk who have some
knowledge of everything. I keep seeing folk trying to hire for a stack of
skills that rarely come up in a single person.

The person who does user testing five days a week fifty weeks a year is going
to be _way_ better at it than those folk who do one every other month. You
can't expect that level of skill from an individual if you expect them to be
really good at visual design, interaction design and generative user research
_too_.

 _As an aside, I hate the idea of a visual designer that doesn't know markup,
and someone else being responsible for building it - this does not make
sense._

It's a hellishly useful combination to have certainly - and it's my preferred
way of operating.

But other ways can and do work. I've paired with fantastic visual designers
without HTML/CSS knowledge and produced great results in the past. They've had
other skills outside of HTML/CSS that they could help the business with.

You need all of the skills for building a product on a team. They don't
necessarily all need to be in the same person. Folk hired into design roles
are sometimes expected to have an unreasonable number of skills in my
experience.

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adrianhoward
A little bit disappointed that the 'visual designer' is pretty much relegated
to making things pretty... UX work is so much more than that. No UX research.
No user testing. etc.

The big thing _missing_ from this stack though is what's actually being built?
Where are the folk who understand the product and customers and market? Those
people need to be part of the team too.

~~~
philfreo
Yeah - I actually had "UX designer" as a separate role, but decided to leave
it out and focus on the more technical / hard deliverable side, since there
would also be an argument for including Product Managers, Customer Happiness,
Sales, Investors, etc. (ideally all of these roles impact what is built)

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jokull
Not just for startups. Imagine if companies that have already seen pre-
internet growth could attract this talent and apply it to new solutions,
otherwise threatening startups ideas. It’s probably easier to ignore the
problem of external threats from startups and just raise the walls of market
entry.

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mamby
why are you fighting the reality? where is .NET, Java ...

~~~
mcgwiz
It's hipster journalism. Why are _you_ fighting the reality? ;-)

