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Comment by paraditedc | Hacker News Reader

As a full stack engineer, I'm expected to know all of frontend, all of backend, and some level of devops. but I am not paid twice, or even close to twice.

I'm not complaining, just pointing that scope of frontend is still relatively small as compared to other roles.

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You are not expected to know ALL of both. You don't know ALL of both.

A pure SQL specialist of similar talent as you probably knows tons of stuff you don't. Man, I would love to have one at my side all day.

I guess I should qualify my statement better. You are expected to know both frontend and backend, in interview or daily work, to the same degree of a frontend engineer and a backend engineer respectively.

I would expect an SQL specialist to know more about SQL than a backend engineer. But that's a different scope all together.

To the same degree? I disagree there. I would never expect a full-stack engineer to be more proficient at front-end when compared to a FE specialist. You are expected to know some, but not to the same degree. That’s the reason they are specialists, in comparison.

Yeah, if a company is interviewing full-stack devs at the same level as they do front- or back-end specialists, they probably have a severe shortage of full-stack folks (bar too high) or a glut of mediocre specialists (bar too low).

I wonder though, how can you be a frontend specialist when you don't even know how backend and servers work?

I am sure there are people that expect that, but they are wrong to do so!

I have been in the mobile space. Backend to me means: server side (rails/go/python), javascript, sql, devops, react admin panels, aws, css. Frontend to me means: Android or iOS. When someone says 'full stack' -- that to me means they know iOS or Android AND all of backend.

Front end traditionally has meant the browser.

Mobile apps have been around for over a decade.

Yes. That's an alternative definition, and a valid one as well. And it's more related to the topic of identity crisis.

You are not paid by the amount you know, but by the amount of work you produce.

I guess if 2 full stack engineers provide equal work as 1 front-end and 1 back-end engineer, there are no reasons for full stack engineers to be paid more

I disagree. What happens if one frontend or backend developer isn't available (quits, vacation, etc)? One of your full stack developers can fill in. You're paying for flexibility as well.

However,. I think that two good full stack developers should be able to outperform a frontend/backend pair because they reduce the need for communication. Many problems take as long to describe as to implement, so you'll iterate a lot faster with two full stack developers focused on one feature each than a frontend/backend pair sharing two features.

The only time having two specialists is important is if you have plenty of talent and projects are well separated. That's rarely the case, so a full stack developer should be significantly more valuable.

I think we are in agreement?

My point is that people should be less entitled in terms of what's expected from them.

makes me wonder when people will realize that "full stack" and "devops" are great ways to have less persons do more things and save a bunch on salaries. a gold mine for my corp.

> devops

Isn't that basically "backend" with lots of experience around automation tools?

I have only worked at startups, so I guess I wear all hats. Here's what I understand:

- frontend - presentation bits, can further separate into developer and designer for UX and logic respectively - backend - APIs, database interaction, concurrency, etc - full stack - backend and frontend - dba - tuning databases - server admin - tuning OS - devops - automation, with a splash of backend and server admin

Does that sound about right? If so, full stack and devops overlap quite a bit, and must full stack should be able to handle devops tasks, so wouldn't "full stack" be sufficient to fill your ranks?

My devops experience hasn't been much backend at all. Mostly scripting, server configuration & stand-up, etc. But I consider backend API programming.

It doesn't really save on salaries, though, unless the company is so small that it doesn't have enough work to take up the time of both a full-time full-stack developer and a full-time operations person and can replace two people with a single person who does both jobs.

It costs more because someone with both skill-sets will demand a higher salary than someone with only one of the skill-sets.

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