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This was my experience with the job I'm at now. I was hired as a "full stack" developer and when I got here I learned I was the only one on my team comfortable working on the back-end. The team is small and very much the opposite of the ideal scenario he talks about in the article (people have their specialties and are only willing to pick up work within those specialties). This has actually given me an opportunity to create a niche for myself where I am able to jump into just about any project at any point in the stack.

>When I take a job that's described as "back end" it usually will involve every once in a while doing a bit of js, html, or css, but not much, and it's understood that it is not what I am going to be doing most of the time.

Do you feel that 'reporting' (of the SSRS variety)falls under the backend umbrella?

Tough question. It's kind of like, does "data science" count as back-end, or a separate category? I tend to think both reporting and data science (which are at different parts of a spectrum of data-oriented roles) are different enough from other back-end jobs to deserve a separate designation.

In practice, I've also seen a similar "bait-and-switch" where people get told they'll do data science, and then get pressed into back-end development instead.

I think full-stack simply means the company wants the flexibility to hire someone that may work on either frontend or backend as need arises. With every specific company over the course of a few (<5) years that need will likely be just in one area (frontend or backend) as the systemic problem that creates the need is unlikely to be solved in such a short time span. In theory if you worked for them for 30 years I think there's a good chance you could be working on both backend and frontend but in practice 30 years is a long enough time that so many other things may be different to invalidate that (starting with your own skills and preferences).

> I think full-stack simply means the company wants the flexibility to hire someone that may work on either frontend or backend as need arises.

Or both. Up to 2x the work at 1x the salary. Win. Same for "devops".