It's not a myth. Or you are specialized in one or more complex skills in one field. Or you are specialized in knowing as much as you can in every field to build

It's not a myth. Or you are specialized in one or more complex skills in one field. Or you are specialized in knowing as much as you can in every field to build something out of it. So or you are specialized in a field like deployment (AWS, boto, Chef, docker, kubernetes, Mesos... and the list goes on), or like front-end (React, bootstrap, CSS3 reactive design...), or iOS app, back end, databases... Or, you are specialized in connecting all these dots. And this is a full stack developer. Just knowing how to do the "operational details" is a job in itself. It's a job to work on very specific things at Google/Apple/FB, and it's what they need the most: developers who are the bests in their field. On the other side, it's also a full time job to know how to build a website with RoR with a RDBMS db and cache db, maybe on AWS, and even with some React in it. It's already quite a lot. And this is more what startups wants. Or at least a few of these people as a team leader or working closely with every person in their team to connect their dots, to design the app/web app/web site as a whole. Now yes ask to a full stack RoR dev how to design and code a database and he won't know, ask him even how to do specific things on AWS and he may not know either. But he will know how to design and build the whole product from A to Z, and to manage people doing what he can't do. And at the opposite ask an expert in iOS apps how the back end really works when he sends a request to their Restful API and he won't know. Same thing for someone specialized in the back end and you ask him something about React. Both are specialised in one stack. Or you want to master specific tech/stack/field and you become specialized in one of them, or you become broader and broader and you become a full stack developer. It can be full stack dev in iOS (so maybe with some NodeJS in it to do Restful API), or as another example a full stack dev in big data (so I guess: Python Luigy, MapReduce, Spark, Redshift, Scala, Java, AWS...). At the end of day our time is limited and we can't be specialized in everything so if what we love the most to do is to use Personally as a full stack dev, I am like a small CTO and can be one. I love to have the whole picture in my mind and to know how everything works together on a higher scale. I love all these tech around (AWS Boto, Docker, Vault, Consul, Spark, ML...) and I am like a kid who with a new toy when projects like these ones come out. I prefer to read an articles on Highscalability.com about Airbnb or Uber and do the same, rather than crunching SQL requests.