Comment by gunapologist99 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by gunapologist99 | Hacker News Reader

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> it's aimed at the many people who call themselves "full-stack engineers", but haven't ventured beyond the bounds of a particular framework.

That's a great point. Lots of people think that full-stack means knowing how to use npm to install tailwind and express. They just don't know what they don't know.

A "full-stack engineer" should be very familiar with standards like TCP/IP, HTTP headers, the OSI model, CSS things like flexbox, DOM, CORS, SQL, websockets/eventsource, unicode etc etc as well as probably multiple web frameworks in multiple languages, various backend and cloud platforms (at least enough to get around in) like AWS and GCP, and understand what proxies and TLS are and what they do, and probably also how to do things like Let's Encrypt and write secure code with XSS, CSRF, etc hardening.

Obviously, everything is a gradient, and nobody is perfect with everything (as well as the JS build tool of the week) but this stuff takes years and perhaps decades to really grok. There's nothing wrong with being a "junior dev", or just a "dev", or whatever -- it takes a lot of effort to master your craft, especially when you're crossing multiple domains from front-end to back-end to security to architecture. But it is important to know where you best fit in, at least at whatever your current career stage is.

I think it's unrealistic for any engineer to remain highly proficient in many of those things simultaneously. I use AWS day-to-day, but haven't used GCP day-to-day in 5+ years - should I realistically be able to keep abreast of the vast number of GCP changes that have happened over that time (plus all the changes in devops that make the workflows I was using 10 years ago look outdated)? Many projects don't need Websockets or Eventsource - do I have to keep that knowledge top-of-mind across the years that I don't use them? Can you really claim that you're "very familiar" with that web framework that you used two jobs ago - assuming there haven't been a bunch of major changes since then? I guess my point here is that proficiency teaches you some knowledge, but perhaps more importantly it provides you with context, guidance and direction when picking up new stuff (or catching up on old stuff).

When referring to AWS/GCP, I said,

> "at least enough to get around in"

Because, you're right -- cloud-based knowledge changes a lot faster (and gets wider) than standards-based, and it's actually a lot less useful because you don't know from year to year if the knowledge is even still relevant or if the product is still supported.

And, yes, you do need to keep standards-based knowledge top-of-mind, even if you perhaps are not currently building projects on them and even if you can't remember the specifics of syntax etc. Knowing every tool in your toolbox will make you a far better engineer, and, yes, it absolutely can be done.

> A "full-stack engineer" should be very familiar with...

That person doesn't exist, gradient or not. There's no way for someone to be "very familiar" with so many different domains at the same time. By the time you gain familiarity with all the domains, the information you initially learned will be out of date or you will have forgotten.

Also, full-stack colloquially refers to someone who can work on frontend and backend.

I sometimes market myself as a “true full-stack engineer” and I’d say I’m pretty darn familiar with everything from the machine code, lexer, parser, compiler, linker, language idioms in a few languages, frameworks, CSS, HTML, TCP/IP, an ever-hating-and-hope-will-die feeling towards GRPC, JSON quirks, YAML quirks, how file systems work, how email works (SMTP, DKIM, SPF, etc), k8s, the Linux kernel, custom drivers, video game engines and the maths behind them (like Quaternions, vectors, matrices, etc), and probably a few other things I can’t remember right now.

It takes a lot of time work to stay on top of these things but it’s a passion, and some things I know exist but don’t know the current incantation for (like getting full screen access for a game engine). It used to be quite long, but I think it’s much less LoC these days. Anyway… we do exist.

Like I said, for me it’s a passion. It probably won’t come up in an interview unless it’s a startup and the job sounds incredibly interesting. Even then I might keep my mouth shut just to not come across as over-qualified or “too expensive.”

To me being "very familiar" with those things would mean that you could perform the role of a SWE, SRE, compiler dev, <language> dev, <framework> dev, kernel dev, engine dev, etc right now and be effective.

Since that isn't possible I have to assume that you have a different definition of "very familiar" than I do.

It is possible. Contradiction dissolved.

Do you know of such a person? I would love to see someone who can work in all of those roles simultaneously so I can try to learn how they're so effective across such a large number domains.

Sure. I’m like the person you replied to. It’s three things. 1) It took me 25+ years to amass the expertise. 2) It’s a hobby first, and a career second. 3) Since the beginning I always choose to see how things are the same more than how they are different. Goes for languages, hardware, APIs, OSes, protocols, everything. I insist on seeing it all as superficial variations on the same thing, no matter what anybody says.

Oh but I don’t know how to do SRE. No interest.

Same. It took about 25+ years, and a hobby that happens to pay the bills. Interesting that you say that about how things are similar. It’s so true! The same patterns/abstractions are everywhere, just with different words in them, different orders, and sometimes, different names.

I also have no interest in an SRE role. I don’t like being on-call. I build systems to fail gracefully so I never work weekends, but most people don’t do that for some reason.

I currently work as a SWE. We don’t have explicit roles where I work, but my responsibilities are in-line with a principal or lead engineer.

I've also written a Linux driver, a filesystem, IPC code across an ARM CPU and proprietary DSP, web apps in PHP, Python, React, and Go, desktop apps, data pipelines, reporting dashboards, and all kinds of other things. Same as my sibling I stay curious and say yes a lot.

I’m active in my favorite language’s development, I work as a SWE, my current project is in a legacy system touching billions of people a year. Prior to that, I worked on a stats-heavy project that needed to make real-time decisions for millions of users at any given moment.

On my free time, I work on various things like building a cockpit for a flight sim, building my own Bluetooth door lock, learning new languages and frameworks, creating SDKs for my favorite language to popular services, etc.

I don't think this is true - while exposure to a wider or narrower set of these domains / technologies will depend greatly by your held positions and responsibilities within teams, size of companies worked for, and raw years of experience (so it is a gradient), I would expect from an experienced web developer to simply be very familiar with all of these if they are passionate and curious about what they do.

I consider myself a mediocre senior web dev, and I am can humbly say that I'm very familiar with all of the listed, without intentional effort in that direction over the years, simply because I wanted to understand the context of some of the things I needed to do, and also poke into each enough to understand how much depth there is and what I don't know. It is natural that it tends to add up.

Over the years, I saw a strong correlation between that breadth and how "good" someone was - on the example of someone working on the fronted in a team, I see 3 basic categories:

1) Not very good: I can do only the most direct and specified things and if something doesn't go as implementation plan intended, or requires outside of what I see as my "formal scope" (e.g. "frontend developer", so React + CSS), I expect someone to solve it so I can continue

2) Ok, but limited: I do only the things inside my "formal scope", so if I'm building a frontend to a web app, it's someone else's responsibility to think about e.g. security - but when something doesn't go as planned along my line of work, I'll find why and unblock it

3) Good: We're building a web app, what are all the things it needs to consider and achieve? My part in the team is this UI / frontend, but if security is important for this use-case, how will my frontend be cognizant of the security goals? I should read up that OSI thing I heard about, cover the basics on my side, and start the discussion on it so we as a team ensure the frontend part is good security-wise

> I wanted to understand the context of some of the things I needed to do, and also poke into each enough to understand how much depth there is and what I don't know

To me this is not equivalent to "very familiar". I think whakim's comment puts things well:

> I use AWS day-to-day, but haven't used GCP day-to-day in 5+ years - should I realistically be able to keep abreast of the vast number of GCP changes that have happened over that time (plus all the changes in devops that make the workflows I was using 10 years ago look outdated)? Many projects don't need Websockets or Eventsource - do I have to keep that knowledge top-of-mind across the years that I don't use them? Can you really claim that you're "very familiar" with that web framework that you used two jobs ago - assuming there haven't been a bunch of major changes since then?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30474206

> That person doesn't exist

Just because you've never met one doesn't mean they don't exist.

However, often, people like this (sadly) move into management or into higher-level architecture types of roles, and let their tech skills go fallow.

"Very familiar" feels pretty squishy, aren't there fairly standard HR terms for these levels of knowledge? I'm pretty sure it's less than "proficient" which is less than "expert," and I feel there should be at least one more in the middle there. I've always understood "familiar" being just a little more than exposure.

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