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Mwenedata Apotre
Mwenedata Apotre

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Inspired by Hernan Cortes( Choosing a career by burning all your boats).

To all of you reading this post, let me first greet you and tell you that I'm curious to know on which side of web application building do you prefer to work on? (Comment down below and come back 😁).

Hernan's story

Hernan cortes was a battle commander and he had few soldiers left and once they landed on the enemy's territory he commanded the soldiers to burn their boats so that they fight knowing that it's either winning or dying and no turning back! What's interesting and inspiring is that these soldiers ended up winning the battle which proved this method psychologically efficient.

Everyone's story

Entering this field of software development mainly the web development many people learn the basics and then they are bombarded with the two sides of web development - Frontend and Backend- and they end up being stuck in choosing where to specialize. For many resources you find online answering this question they give an advice of starting by trying to work on both and get the experience or know how it feels like to work on that side of web development and it is actually the right thing to do at first. What rises as a problem is when someone actually spends too long jumping from Frontend to Backend from project to project.

The problem with Full stack developers these days

There are many problems related with Full Stack developers in modern days:

  • Full Stack developers are now having unbalanced knowledge on both sides of web development, i.e for example 40% (Frontend) and (60%) and they still prefer to call themselves Full Stack developers while it's clearly visible they are good at the backend in this case.
  • Full Stack developers today stand a very little chance in getting jobs considering the market today i.e the current supply and demand. Today being a jack of all trades and a master of none will help you get a job if you only you meet '##Lady Luck' otherwise being a master at what you do is what will help you stand out from the crowd. Do a research yourself!

So, enough of this let me go to my personality.

My Personality

I don't like the idea of being a jack of all trades instead I like picturing myself being a master in something given the condition that I have a true passion in it. This means that any advice that conveys the same message as this proverb ##Don't keep all your eggs in one basket ## don't actually please me. I like the idea of ## burning all your boats ## . In development it's in that way I went for backend development.

Why do I call it burning the boats

If you have a little of experience in job searching you probably have noticed that many Job boards have many Frontend job opportunities than backend and they usually have quite tolerating requirements for many people to apply compared to backend job openings found there. So, trying to pursue and land a job in backend development is really hard. That's why I call it burning boats, there is no turning back!

Why is this method effective

First of all it increased my productivity because I usually would feel overwhelmed with all the things I had to focus on but after finding what to spend most of my time on I usually find myself having a clear mind at every end of the day and a feeling of having achieved something each day mainly learning something new. And I enjoy doing that every single day.

I had many things to talk about on this topic but I have to keep these article short. So let me hear your points in the comments and other topics you would like me to talk about in the future.

Conclusion

As conclusion, you should not take my word just like that. But what I'm saying is based on experience and totally on my own opinions and you should use this article and combine it with the knowledge you have to make good use of both.

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turinumugisha_s profile image
TURINUMUGISHA Souvenir

Cool stuff!