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Discussion on: DISCUSS: The blurred line between front-end and fullstack

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bholmesdev profile image
Ben Holmes

Fair question! I've been wondering this myself since Chris Coyier's take on the "great divide" of web development, where even just frontend has taken on some backend-y expectations.

Let me say that full stack has taken on a new meaning as it's gotten thrown around over the years. In my opinion, it means you'll be touching some pieces of the stack from the database layer to the UI. This could exclude:

  • Dev Ops tasks like e2e tests and security
  • Database work
  • Creating and maintaining a "design system" (i.e. you build the UI with building blocks from someone else)
  • etc etc etc

In my opinion, any team member who pitched in on both a) querying for data and b) displaying that data to the end user (no matter who helped them get there!) should be considered full stack. It's up to companies to explain the aspects of fullstack + frameworks they expect new employees to use. Even this answer feels shaky to me but I hope it helps!

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Thalita G.

Haha! I wanted to list that article as well, but decided to keep it at one article from Chris Coyier, and I like his saltier one. :p

A pretty unique meaning of fullstack compared to the other comments, but it does make sense! A lot of fullstack roles don't seem to have as many requirements for the back-end than the front-end. You'd think that *full*stack means that you need to be able to use the stack from top to bottom, but in reality that isn't necessarily the case.