A Full-Stack Web Team Will Provide Much-Needed Breadth And Depth To Your Startup

Perhaps whoever down-voted me can tell me where I was wrong so I can learn?

It's still somewhat meaningless because there's still not a commonly accepted meaning. I would consider myself a fullstack web person, but I don't do linux kernel hacking. COULD I? Possibly, if my life depended on it, but since I have no kernel patches to my name, you might not consider me a fullstack developer, although I do (and others in my network would).

By comparison to other people who only know photoshop, or only know SQL, or only know sysadmin work, I can operate functionally in many areas.

syadmin - compile and set up servers from scratch

database - can deal with most aspects of database setup, configuration, troubleshooting, optimization and usage.

server-side level - php, java and a handful of others - worked with web-app languages since 1996 (php/perl primarily in those days).

client-side level - js/ajax/etc

etc - app integration with mail servers, chat servers, multiple external APIs, etc.

Looking at a web browser, I can trace a click across the network with wireshark, through various layers down to my app, then in to a database, and can tell you how long each segment took and why and how to improve it for speed or scale.

But... I've never done kernel hacking beyond compiling, so by your definition, I'm probably not a fullstack developer.

See why there's confusion around the term?

FWIW, I'm OK with the term, but think it's going to get generalized to the point of being the next 'rockstar ninja' phrase we'll see plastered everywhere in 2013.

It's not just a cost issue - depending on the size of the unicorn.

For example I know nobody who is really good at all of:

* user testing

* interaction design

* visual design

* HTML/CSS

* JavaScript

* user research

* branding

* information architecture

* cognitive psychology

* ethnography

* marketing

I know folk who are really good at a subset. I know folk who have some knowledge of everything. I keep seeing folk trying to hire for a stack of skills that rarely come up in a single person.

The person who does user testing five days a week fifty weeks a year is going to be way better at it than those folk who do one every other month. You can't expect that level of skill from an individual if you expect them to be really good at visual design, interaction design and generative user research too.

As an aside, I hate the idea of a visual designer that doesn't know markup, and someone else being responsible for building it - this does not make sense.

It's a hellishly useful combination to have certainly - and it's my preferred way of operating.

But other ways can and do work. I've paired with fantastic visual designers without HTML/CSS knowledge and produced great results in the past. They've had other skills outside of HTML/CSS that they could help the business with.

You need all of the skills for building a product on a team. They don't necessarily all need to be in the same person. Folk hired into design roles are sometimes expected to have an unreasonable number of skills in my experience.

No argument that it helps - and I vastly prefer working with folk in that mode.

But I've also worked successfully with great visual designers who figure out the medium's constraints without knowing CSS/HTML - and bring other aspects to the team (e.g. great user research skills).

I'd be a fool to reject them just because they lack HTML/CSS. I just pair them with somebody who does. They both learn.