My day job is designing and developing websites, but in my off time, I like to build all kinds of things, including Ruby gems, iPhone apps, and Alexa skills.
I think a good full stack developer needs three things:
Expertise in at least one frontend and one backend technology (could also be a hybrid framework like RoR) with a solid grasp on frontend fundamentals (HTML, CSS, JavaScript) and some experience with basic operations tools (Heroku, AWS, etc.)
A broad knowledge of the current landscape of web development and a general understanding of the many tools out there and their purposes (even if they haven’t used all of them.)
The ability to quickly learn how to use new tools to put something together.
That’s it. #3 is the most important.
Put another way, full stack developers should be confident with a few development tools, know enough about a lot of the tools available to them to identify when one of those tools would be beneficial to use, and be comfortable quickly learning those tools when the need arises.
I also don’t like the term full stack developer and second what Kasey said; I think everyone should just be labeled a developer with a few key specialties, and then figure out their own unique role within a company or team as time goes on.
Oh, and I think the list above applies to all web developers, not just full stack.
I think a good full stack developer needs three things:
That’s it. #3 is the most important.
Put another way, full stack developers should be confident with a few development tools, know enough about a lot of the tools available to them to identify when one of those tools would be beneficial to use, and be comfortable quickly learning those tools when the need arises.
I also don’t like the term full stack developer and second what Kasey said; I think everyone should just be labeled a developer with a few key specialties, and then figure out their own unique role within a company or team as time goes on.
Oh, and I think the list above applies to all web developers, not just full stack.
You made me remove the word full-stack from my bio here. 😎