I came across an excellent blog post on full stack developers – “The full stack developer is a myth“. I do much agree on what is being said there. Firstly, the stack itself.
Secondly, on the problem:
A full stack developer is a myth not because none exist, but because the term is meaningless. It’s no different from a coding ninja or rockstar, but at least everyone knows those terms don’t actually mean anything.
Even limiting the term to a more specific context like web stack or mobile stack, you’d still get quite a bit of technology for a single person. And yes, it’s changing a lot and fast too!
Every year there are new components added to each layer and every couple of years there’s a new layer added to it. Is it really reasonable to put out job applications asking for a full stack developer? It’s not only unreasonable, it’s stupid. Particularly when you start looking for one person who’s an expert in security, web development, UX, and servers; and this isn’t at all an uncommon expectation.
More so, there is a geographical component to this as well. If you are in a small country like Cyprus, with very few technical establishments, even further down simplifying the stack won’t help you much. Finding a web developer with good knowledge of HTTP, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, and MySQL is already a challenge. And that’s like three or four layers…