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"Full Stack Developer" is the equivalent of "5 years of experience" in whatever new language or tech was announced last week. When I see companies advertise tha

"Full Stack Developer" is the equivalent of "5 years of experience" in whatever new language or tech was announced last week. When I see companies advertise that, I know they are clueless right up front.

danielweber 12y ago
About a week ago it occurred to me that "Full Stack Developer" is what we used to call "Software Engineer." It's like suddenly understanding some idiom the locals are using; everything in the universe made a lot more sense.
- ForHackernews 12y ago
  Is that true? I always took "Full Stack Developer" to mean "We're too cheap to hire a proper ops team, so we're going to expect you to serve triple-duty as Sysadmin, DBA, and Software Developer." Maybe I've been unfairly ignoring a lot of postings?
  - jnbiche 12y ago
    >"...we're going to expect you to serve triple-duty as Sysadmin, DBA, and Software Developer." >Maybe I've been unfairly ignoring a lot of postings? If that's your impression, then I think you have been. By full-stack developer, many people in the start-up world simply mean someone who can work at all levels of web development, from server-side programming to Javascript, CSS, and HTML. It's not an unreasonable use of the word, since web developers have long talked of "their stack", meaning what they use for server-side framework, caching, http server, as well as client-side frameworks and development environments. I don't think most people use the term to include sysops, although in a small start-up you will inevitably be doing a lot of that.
    - ForHackernews 12y ago
      > web developers have long talked of "their stack", meaning what they use for server-side framework, caching, http server, as well as client-side frameworks and development environments. I guess I would consider the http/app/caching servers to be properly the province of sysops. As a web developer, I consider myself to be responsible for server-side code/frameworks, database schemas (but not DB installation/configuration/replication), and perhaps client-side HTML/JS/CSS. I'm capable of installing and doing basic setup for things like nginx, varnish, and uWSGI or passenger, but I find it frustrating and I'm certainly no expert in configuring for ideal performance.

danielweber 12y ago

About a week ago it occurred to me that "Full Stack Developer" is what we used to call "Software Engineer." It's like suddenly understanding some idiom the locals are using; everything in the universe made a lot more sense.

ForHackernews 12y ago
Is that true? I always took "Full Stack Developer" to mean "We're too cheap to hire a proper ops team, so we're going to expect you to serve triple-duty as Sysadmin, DBA, and Software Developer." Maybe I've been unfairly ignoring a lot of postings?
- jnbiche 12y ago
  >"...we're going to expect you to serve triple-duty as Sysadmin, DBA, and Software Developer." >Maybe I've been unfairly ignoring a lot of postings? If that's your impression, then I think you have been. By full-stack developer, many people in the start-up world simply mean someone who can work at all levels of web development, from server-side programming to Javascript, CSS, and HTML. It's not an unreasonable use of the word, since web developers have long talked of "their stack", meaning what they use for server-side framework, caching, http server, as well as client-side frameworks and development environments. I don't think most people use the term to include sysops, although in a small start-up you will inevitably be doing a lot of that.
  - ForHackernews 12y ago
    > web developers have long talked of "their stack", meaning what they use for server-side framework, caching, http server, as well as client-side frameworks and development environments. I guess I would consider the http/app/caching servers to be properly the province of sysops. As a web developer, I consider myself to be responsible for server-side code/frameworks, database schemas (but not DB installation/configuration/replication), and perhaps client-side HTML/JS/CSS. I'm capable of installing and doing basic setup for things like nginx, varnish, and uWSGI or passenger, but I find it frustrating and I'm certainly no expert in configuring for ideal performance.