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Again, I suspect we agree on most of this. It's definitely different for junior positions, when someone hasn't had enough time to build up a breadth of experie

Again, I suspect we agree on most of this. It's definitely different for junior positions, when someone hasn't had enough time to build up a breadth of experience yet and getting to a useful depth of understanding in at least one area is more important. FWIW, I also think it's different at elite levels. If you actually are the person who had to, say, develop a data storage system for Facebook at a scale no-one had ever done before, you're probably a database specialist with skills and knowledge in that area far beyond any generalist's. But these positions are rare, as is the need to have someone with that level of specialist skills on your team. For seniors at a high but not exceptional level -- that is, the most senior people you're likely to find in most organisations doing web development -- it's definitely normal for someone to develop both breadth and depth of skill and understanding throughout their career. No doubt many front-end developers (in the programming sense) do also have some level of ability with design work, and many back-end developers (ditto) do also have some level of ability with database design. There's certainly nothing wrong with that, and it's certainly helpful to have that level of understanding whether it's to use the skills directly or just to communicate more effectively with a colleague who has responsibility for that aspect of the work. The only area where perhaps we would slightly disagree is in the idea that being a senior front-end or back-end developer necessarily requires advanced skills in specific related areas as well. The industry is huge and the number of related skills that are potentially useful is large, and which ones are useful for a particular person playing a particular role can vary widely. For example, I've met someone who is very capable when it comes to writing server-side code yet who as far as I know has never touched a database in well over a decade. Their speciality is interfaces for network-connected devices. While a recent project for them might well have had a snazzy SPA on the front-end and a super-dooper GraphQL API running server-side, what is behind that API is probably nothing like a SQL or NoSQL database at all. On the other hand, they probably know a lot more about calling local C APIs from server-side languages like JS or Python than most. I would certainly call that person a senior level developer -- I doubt there are more than a few thousand people in the entire world with the combination of skills and experience they have, maybe not even that many -- but it seems they would not clear the bar for you because they lack significant database expertise?

murgindrag 6y ago
I think we might just have difference for where we place the bar for 'senior.' This does vary by company too. A non-tech company, a tech outsourcing shop in India, Oracle, Google, and elite startups all have very different bars. At least in companies I've been, someone who can code but cannot design a database, that's a junior backend position, no questions asked. Likewise, someone who can code, but can't do UI/UX design work, that's a junior design position, no questions asked. I think one issue is that if someone has depth in algorithms, computer architectures, and similar, becoming a competent DBA isn't too much work. SQL isn't rocket science, and neither is how databases are organized. If you don't understand B-trees, have background in what sorts of operations to nanoseconds, microseconds, or milliseconds, cache hierarchies, and so on, that's a pretty generally-applicable back-end data set, and you can pick up databases in a few months. That's something I'd expect a senior back-end engineer to have done at some point in their career. If not, I'd hire them in a more junior role, and then advance them quickly. Coincidentally, with that skillset, you can also design something new, like that Facebook back-end. That's also what FAANG interviews try to screen for, although they've had the narrowing effect that people try to master FAANG interview questions, without necessarily that depth. In line with that, I also don't think positions like the Facebook one you described are rare. A lot of positions I've seen require that level of background. I also think you underestimate the number of people at that level.

murgindrag 6y ago

I think we might just have difference for where we place the bar for 'senior.' This does vary by company too. A non-tech company, a tech outsourcing shop in India, Oracle, Google, and elite startups all have very different bars. At least in companies I've been, someone who can code but cannot design a database, that's a junior backend position, no questions asked. Likewise, someone who can code, but can't do UI/UX design work, that's a junior design position, no questions asked. I think one issue is that if someone has depth in algorithms, computer architectures, and similar, becoming a competent DBA isn't too much work. SQL isn't rocket science, and neither is how databases are organized. If you don't understand B-trees, have background in what sorts of operations to nanoseconds, microseconds, or milliseconds, cache hierarchies, and so on, that's a pretty generally-applicable back-end data set, and you can pick up databases in a few months. That's something I'd expect a senior back-end engineer to have done at some point in their career. If not, I'd hire them in a more junior role, and then advance them quickly. Coincidentally, with that skillset, you can also design something new, like that Facebook back-end. That's also what FAANG interviews try to screen for, although they've had the narrowing effect that people try to master FAANG interview questions, without necessarily that depth. In line with that, I also don't think positions like the Facebook one you described are rare. A lot of positions I've seen require that level of background. I also think you underestimate the number of people at that level.