Pros And Cons Of The Full Stack Developer Path

Being a full-stack developer is more difficult than being a pure frontend or backend developer – you have to understand a lot of technologies. Let’s see the pros and cons of the path of the Jedi.

Pros:

1. It’s easier for you to change careers. Since you have a basic understanding of both the front and back end, you can choose one direction and change your speciality if you wish. Of course, diving deep into new stacks and technologies will take time. But it will be easier for you to become, for example, a backend developer than a frontend one.
2. It is easier for you to become a leader. You can design software or an application alone, which means you understand how development works. This simplifies the transition to team leads or architects, but you will need the ability to manage a team and build processes.
3. You can create solutions at the intersection of technologies. Alone, you can develop a solution that usually requires several people with different specializations to create. The skill can be useful if you want to develop your product and launch a start-up. In this case, at least for the MVP (minimum viable product), you will not need to hire a team.
4. Lower risk of burnout. Programmers burn out when they are engaged in the same work for a long time and have already managed to develop themselves thoroughly. In a Full stack position, you constantly have to learn new technologies – the risk of burnout is lower.
5. You can choose the best solutions. By understanding how different systems interact, you can choose solutions that other developers are afraid to use due to a lack of experience.

Minuses:

1. In a particular area, you are worse than a narrow specialist. Due to the many technologies you have to work with; you only have time to dive deeply into a particular area. Because of this, in certain matters, you will always be inferior to a programmer with narrow specialization.
2. It’s harder for you to develop. Frontend and backend developers can deeply understand the tools they work with all the time. You are forced to allocate time between different technologies. And for this reason, you grow more slowly than developers with narrow specialization.
3. It’s harder for you to find a job. In vacancies, employers rarely indicate the position of “Full stack developer”. Rather, you will have to apply for jobs that match your skills, responsibilities, and technology stack. Finding them is harder: you can’t customize your search for a single keyword. You will have to use different keywords or look at all the vacancies with the desired salary level.
4. Employers may need to trust you. Some HR professionals are alarmed when a candidate’s resume has too many different skills and technologies. They may think that you are embellishing your experience. Therefore, writing a resume for each developer vacancy is better, leaving only interesting experience to a potential employer.
5. It is more difficult for you to relax on vacation. Since you are closing a wide pool of tasks, replacing you with another specialist is more difficult. On vacation, colleagues who need help may call and write to you.