Totally agree with you there. I've been living in Denmark for the past three years and I've noticed the same thing. It seems like more and more companies, not just here but all over Europe, are on the hunt for full-stack developers. I guess it's because hiring one full-stack developer is probably cheaper than getting two separate specialists. I went down that road myself and almost hit burnout. It's a tough gig!
100% true. It's cheaper to hire indeed. But it also results in products of lesser quality in my opinion. So just stay focussed and do what you enjoy most, there's more than enough companies out there searching for experts too!
Many more beginners need to hear this. I always thought I had to know how to manage every little detail for developing a web app, but it turns out that what I enjoy is simply creating beautiful animations and designs. That's exactly what I'm also trying to teach with my channel. Kudos for bringing this idea to more people's attention!
It is very confusing. I follow UA-cam, Twitter and I even hear comments on LinkedIn. Everyone has so many different opinions on how to focus on development when looking for that first job. Now I hear this new thing called T-Shape Development. T-Shape development sounds like Full stack still when people try and explain this. I even Googled what is T-Shaped and got very generalized answers. So, at the moment I am focused on React with Golang for creating Restful Apis. What is T-Shape
I dont think we should strive for full stack but i do think we should delete specific job titles, at least for junior roles, because they create barriers for entry and growth. Companies should hire software developers and invest in their strengths and interests and allow people to try new things. If I'd been hired solely as a frontend engineer rather than a junior software engineer i think my career would have stagnated because i wouldnt have been exposed to enough things.
This is so true!! Companies should enable developers in their strengths. Don't force them to widen or narrow down. People who do what they enjoy the most, will create the best results! Thanks for commenting this, super valuable addition to my story!
At the end of the day, do what YOU enjoy. You will only ever be GREAT at something you actually want to do. I started at a company as a frontender, then suddenly they expected everybody to be fullstack. I sort of forgot why I became a frontender in the first place. Thankfully this video helped me remember. Thanks!
Thank you for this message. I am a CIS student and am graduating in about 6 months with no idea exactly which direction I want to go since I've had courses in a little bit of a lot of things. This is very helpful advice!
If we talk about low budget freelance projects (a simple blog, portfolio etc), any developer could call himself full stack. But is that true? If we talk about big e-commerce projects with lots integrations, APIs, complex logic, 200-300k products in database, full stack is a myth. There is a team of BE, FE devs, architects, QAs, PM, etc working together. You either write high quality FE code or high quality BE code. You cannot write both, because that would be shit code. And in future they'll have to rewrite your code.
“Companies don’t look for full stack developers” I beg to differ. There are more job postings for full stack devs than frontend or back end specialists. The size of the company is often not the same though. It’s primarily small to medium sized companies that look for full stack developers.
It of course is also a matter of budget indeed. If a company isn’t that large, they hope to hire a single developer that can fill both roles instead of hiring two people, because that would be more expensive. So while that’s absolutely true, I do think however that those aren’t the companies you want to work for. I think those are the companies who settle for “good enough”, instead of delivering the best experiences. And the latter is what I want In my job, and also why I specialize in frontend. For that I think you need to work at a company who also values the specialisms and is able to hire people accordingly. Hope that makes sense!
@@frontendfyi I completely understand your point of view. Me, I like the increased impact I can have as a developer when working at a smaller sized company. It’s also very satisfying to be able to ship features from backend to frontend.
@jonathanrosado5818 this makes a lot of sense too indeed! In the end you need to work in a way you like. Nothing wrong with being a fullstack developer, it’s even cool if you can do all of it! And if you keep on going long enough, you could even end up being a unicorn who creates amazing experiences across the full stack. Main takeaway from my video is perhaps more towards people who almost feel forced to learn it all, why that is far from the truth. There’s a place for both specialists and generalists. Great nuance, thanks for adding!
I completely disagree. Our modern world has shifted far too much in favor of specialization. In my opinion, it’s created far too many experts who are blinded to everything outside of their very narrow field of expertise. Projects are about more than just one single aspect, and all of their individual pieces need to integrate smoothly and effectively. I’m not advocating that one person should know how to do every little thing, but I believe it’s important, in any field, to have broad knowledge and skills and to understand, even if you are a specialist, how your work connects to the work of your teammates. This is hampered when you focus on only one skill and nothing else. Besides this, I think people vastly undersell the value of remote association when it comes to professional work. So many people talk down to anybody who has done work outside of their field as “wasted time” when, in reality, taking ideas from one context and remixing them into another field is the very definition of creativity. Not everyone needs to be a full stack developer, nor should they be. But I think we need to realize that extremely narrow specialization is dangerous, separates us from other ideas and from other people. The world is broad, it’s ok to look around.
I think we’re still on the same page though! Being a broad generalist is definitely super important too. However, I tend to see that currently there’s too many companies saying everybody should become a full stack engineer. This results in the same people who they expect to create the best user experience and web accessibility, as well as know how to setup proper authentication and database protection. Resulting in well over 90% of these generalists to create mediocre solutions in at least some of these areas. My approach is that one should be more of a specialist in certain area, and from there on broaden out to get an understanding and experience about the areas around that. Because that experience is super important too, but should only be considered as something that’s added and not your main specialism, rather than trying to be someone who can do it all and is blinded for the gaps in their knowledge they still have. Meaning you also keep calling you a frontend engineer rather than a full stack engineer, to show which area is your main specialism. Looking at myself I have almost 15 years of experience building stuff across the stack, and I’m definitely proficient in setup up many backend things too, and many more areas outside these two as well. However, I’d never say I’m a fullstack engineer because both areas are already so vast that I can’t deliver the same quality across the stack. Frontend is definitely where I’m the most specialized, so that is what I communicate. As an experienced engineer you almost have to expect that after a certain amount of years you have experience across the stack either way.
@@frontendfyi I can see where you’re coming from. The “T-shaped” field of expertise, where you have deep knowledge of one field and shallower, broader knowledge of others is an extremely effective way to go about it, I think. It’s almost like the best of both worlds, and in some respects I strive towards that myself. However, I think like yourself, I dislike the notion that every individual has to be one way or another. I don’t think everyone needs to be full stack, just like I don’t think everyone needs to be “T shaped” or a narrow specialist. People have diverse needs, interests, and time they are willing or able to put into development. My belief would be to encourage people to explore what fits them best, and that we shouldn’t be expecting them all to conform to one type of development.
@Explorers.Spirit totally agree with you! Also if you for example want to go in the direction of a software architect being a broad full stack dev will probable be a lot better than a narrow specialist or tshaped person.
I like your advice. It is contrary to what most are saying but I find it more realistic compared to what most are saying online. I am trying to focus myself only on web development with React and there is so much to learn. When I over think things, I watch this video to keep me on track. Thanks!
this is why you see most tutorial on youtube are showing the same things because all of them need to cover alot of things but each one is just repeating others
I agree with you at some level; but starting out especially for those building their own project; it’s good to work as full-stack, then when you get the team you can specialize. But you opinions are good to consider
If you're building your own product, you're absolutely right. You pretty much need to do everything, otherwise you can't put a product out there, right? So I think we're absolutely on the same page here!
@@frontendfyi , definitely same page. You’re right too on the burnout thing, sometimes things get too overwhelming. But sometimes it feels good when you get things working. You videos helps a lot too. :)
Thanks for the advice. I graduated from a university with a degree in Computer Science. I would like to know what I should put in my resume after watching this video. Software developer, Software Engineer, Full Stack Developer?. Thank you
This is quite a hard question. Honestly I would say add what you want to be/become. Because the title you use sets expectations of what you like and want to do. If you don’t want to become a fullstack developer, definitely don’t use the term. It might give you more job opportunities, but in the end doing something you don’t like will definitely not make you happy. Hope this helps.
Great points, thank you for making this. Question: What advice would you give to people looking for their niche? Contributing to open-source projects seems to be the best way, but I am curious to hear your perspective. Really helpful video. I am 3 months into becoming a full-stack developer, and that burnout is a constant threat/possibility.
The comment by @TheLiebevvie is a good one. Do what you enjoy most and be curious. Don’t limit yourself in trying new things, but on the other hand also don’t force yourself that you NEED to learn x, y or z. Do what you enjoy most, that’s the easiest way to become super good at something.
It's next to impossible to avoid the full-stack step at the beginning of the journey. Most companies are the ones who need a full-stack dev with a shallow knowledge. Also it's a skill that helps you become a good fit for the CTO role at a company. At the end of the day, it's just a trade-off.
Fully agree with you that if you want to become a CTO, being fullstack is absolutely necessary. So it for sure also depends on the path you want to take in your career.
Thank you so much! Appreciate it! Definitely join the newsletter (footer of the website) to stay up to date on the course development. I’ll release a newsletter about it soon. I’m working as hard as I can on it, but I also got delayed a bit because I had to migrate away from Next App directory because bugs took too much time… Will send out an email with more background on that story this week!
It’s not that next isn’t good enough per se. The issue is the app directly still has a lot of issues that pop up every now and then. That resulted in my losing weeks in debugging time, which is really valuable time when building a company. So in the end I decided that the best bet was to look at alternatives.
Hahaha! It's on my list, but it's a BIG project 🤯 Probably can't handle that right now while building the Framer Motion course. It might eventually land though, but it could be that it will be part of the Framer course and not (fully) public on UA-cam.
Totally agree with you there. I've been living in Denmark for the past three years and I've noticed the same thing. It seems like more and more companies, not just here but all over Europe, are on the hunt for full-stack developers. I guess it's because hiring one full-stack developer is probably cheaper than getting two separate specialists. I went down that road myself and almost hit burnout. It's a tough gig!
100% true. It's cheaper to hire indeed. But it also results in products of lesser quality in my opinion. So just stay focussed and do what you enjoy most, there's more than enough companies out there searching for experts too!
Many more beginners need to hear this. I always thought I had to know how to manage every little detail for developing a web app, but it turns out that what I enjoy is simply creating beautiful animations and designs. That's exactly what I'm also trying to teach with my channel. Kudos for bringing this idea to more people's attention!
So true!!
Awesome to see you're making content too! Just checked your appearing navigation video. Really well done! I subscribed too!
@@frontendfyi thank you sm for checking it out. I love your content as well. Been a subscriber for a while now!
It is very confusing. I follow UA-cam, Twitter and I even hear comments on LinkedIn. Everyone has so many different opinions on how to focus on development when looking for that first job. Now I hear this new thing called T-Shape Development. T-Shape development sounds like Full stack still when people try and explain this. I even Googled what is T-Shaped and got very generalized answers. So, at the moment I am focused on React with Golang for creating Restful Apis. What is T-Shape
I dont think we should strive for full stack but i do think we should delete specific job titles, at least for junior roles, because they create barriers for entry and growth. Companies should hire software developers and invest in their strengths and interests and allow people to try new things. If I'd been hired solely as a frontend engineer rather than a junior software engineer i think my career would have stagnated because i wouldnt have been exposed to enough things.
This is so true!! Companies should enable developers in their strengths. Don't force them to widen or narrow down. People who do what they enjoy the most, will create the best results!
Thanks for commenting this, super valuable addition to my story!
At the end of the day, do what YOU enjoy. You will only ever be GREAT at something you actually want to do. I started at a company as a frontender, then suddenly they expected everybody to be fullstack. I sort of forgot why I became a frontender in the first place. Thankfully this video helped me remember. Thanks!
Thank you for this message. I am a CIS student and am graduating in about 6 months with no idea exactly which direction I want to go since I've had courses in a little bit of a lot of things. This is very helpful advice!
Glad it was helpful 🙏 Good luck with your graduation! You can’t go wrong either way I think!
If we talk about low budget freelance projects (a simple blog, portfolio etc), any developer could call himself full stack. But is that true?
If we talk about big e-commerce projects with lots integrations, APIs, complex logic, 200-300k products in database, full stack is a myth. There is a team of BE, FE devs, architects, QAs, PM, etc working together. You either write high quality FE code or high quality BE code. You cannot write both, because that would be shit code. And in future they'll have to rewrite your code.
10000% agree with this one!
“Companies don’t look for full stack developers”
I beg to differ. There are more job postings for full stack devs than frontend or back end specialists. The size of the company is often not the same though. It’s primarily small to medium sized companies that look for full stack developers.
It of course is also a matter of budget indeed. If a company isn’t that large, they hope to hire a single developer that can fill both roles instead of hiring two people, because that would be more expensive. So while that’s absolutely true, I do think however that those aren’t the companies you want to work for. I think those are the companies who settle for “good enough”, instead of delivering the best experiences. And the latter is what I want In my job, and also why I specialize in frontend. For that I think you need to work at a company who also values the specialisms and is able to hire people accordingly. Hope that makes sense!
@@frontendfyi I completely understand your point of view. Me, I like the increased impact I can have as a developer when working at a smaller sized company. It’s also very satisfying to be able to ship features from backend to frontend.
@jonathanrosado5818 this makes a lot of sense too indeed! In the end you need to work in a way you like. Nothing wrong with being a fullstack developer, it’s even cool if you can do all of it! And if you keep on going long enough, you could even end up being a unicorn who creates amazing experiences across the full stack.
Main takeaway from my video is perhaps more towards people who almost feel forced to learn it all, why that is far from the truth. There’s a place for both specialists and generalists.
Great nuance, thanks for adding!
I completely disagree. Our modern world has shifted far too much in favor of specialization. In my opinion, it’s created far too many experts who are blinded to everything outside of their very narrow field of expertise. Projects are about more than just one single aspect, and all of their individual pieces need to integrate smoothly and effectively. I’m not advocating that one person should know how to do every little thing, but I believe it’s important, in any field, to have broad knowledge and skills and to understand, even if you are a specialist, how your work connects to the work of your teammates. This is hampered when you focus on only one skill and nothing else.
Besides this, I think people vastly undersell the value of remote association when it comes to professional work. So many people talk down to anybody who has done work outside of their field as “wasted time” when, in reality, taking ideas from one context and remixing them into another field is the very definition of creativity.
Not everyone needs to be a full stack developer, nor should they be. But I think we need to realize that extremely narrow specialization is dangerous, separates us from other ideas and from other people. The world is broad, it’s ok to look around.
I think we’re still on the same page though! Being a broad generalist is definitely super important too. However, I tend to see that currently there’s too many companies saying everybody should become a full stack engineer. This results in the same people who they expect to create the best user experience and web accessibility, as well as know how to setup proper authentication and database protection. Resulting in well over 90% of these generalists to create mediocre solutions in at least some of these areas.
My approach is that one should be more of a specialist in certain area, and from there on broaden out to get an understanding and experience about the areas around that. Because that experience is super important too, but should only be considered as something that’s added and not your main specialism, rather than trying to be someone who can do it all and is blinded for the gaps in their knowledge they still have.
Meaning you also keep calling you a frontend engineer rather than a full stack engineer, to show which area is your main specialism. Looking at myself I have almost 15 years of experience building stuff across the stack, and I’m definitely proficient in setup up many backend things too, and many more areas outside these two as well. However, I’d never say I’m a fullstack engineer because both areas are already so vast that I can’t deliver the same quality across the stack. Frontend is definitely where I’m the most specialized, so that is what I communicate. As an experienced engineer you almost have to expect that after a certain amount of years you have experience across the stack either way.
@@frontendfyi I can see where you’re coming from. The “T-shaped” field of expertise, where you have deep knowledge of one field and shallower, broader knowledge of others is an extremely effective way to go about it, I think. It’s almost like the best of both worlds, and in some respects I strive towards that myself.
However, I think like yourself, I dislike the notion that every individual has to be one way or another. I don’t think everyone needs to be full stack, just like I don’t think everyone needs to be “T shaped” or a narrow specialist. People have diverse needs, interests, and time they are willing or able to put into development. My belief would be to encourage people to explore what fits them best, and that we shouldn’t be expecting them all to conform to one type of development.
@Explorers.Spirit totally agree with you! Also if you for example want to go in the direction of a software architect being a broad full stack dev will probable be a lot better than a narrow specialist or tshaped person.
I like your advice. It is contrary to what most are saying but I find it more realistic compared to what most are saying online. I am trying to focus myself only on web development with React and there is so much to learn. When I over think things, I watch this video to keep me on track. Thanks!
Really appreciate your kind words! Very happy that it is helpful to you 🙏
Nowadays jobs require even juniors to know frontend, backend and even devops... Unreal.
Unreal and so wrong indeed…
I heard one lead saying "Fullstack dev is one who knows frontend and backend equally bad".
What is better?
Full Stack Developer
OR
Animator/VFX
this is exactly what I needed, helps me narrow down some options to approach and focus on certain areas that i want.
My advice as Full Stack Engineer is simple: First you need to learn one niche - for example FrontEnd and after this you can achive BackEnd.
this is why you see most tutorial on youtube are showing the same things because all of them need to cover alot of things but each one is just repeating others
im learning to code, and i figure out this in my first week.
Then this video was made for you! Start small and learn that properly. Only then expand your horizon. No need to learn it all at once! 😁
I agree with you at some level; but starting out especially for those building their own project; it’s good to work as full-stack, then when you get the team you can specialize.
But you opinions are good to consider
If you're building your own product, you're absolutely right. You pretty much need to do everything, otherwise you can't put a product out there, right? So I think we're absolutely on the same page here!
@@frontendfyi , definitely same page.
You’re right too on the burnout thing, sometimes things get too overwhelming.
But sometimes it feels good when you get things working.
You videos helps a lot too. :)
Thanks for the advice. I graduated from a university with a degree in Computer Science. I would like to know what I should put in my resume after watching this video. Software developer, Software Engineer, Full Stack Developer?. Thank you
This is quite a hard question. Honestly I would say add what you want to be/become. Because the title you use sets expectations of what you like and want to do. If you don’t want to become a fullstack developer, definitely don’t use the term. It might give you more job opportunities, but in the end doing something you don’t like will definitely not make you happy. Hope this helps.
Great points, thank you for making this. Question: What advice would you give to people looking for their niche? Contributing to open-source projects seems to be the best way, but I am curious to hear your perspective. Really helpful video. I am 3 months into becoming a full-stack developer, and that burnout is a constant threat/possibility.
follow your curiosity. give it a try, don't put constaint on yourself.
The comment by @TheLiebevvie is a good one. Do what you enjoy most and be curious. Don’t limit yourself in trying new things, but on the other hand also don’t force yourself that you NEED to learn x, y or z. Do what you enjoy most, that’s the easiest way to become super good at something.
Bro, this is the greatest underrated UA-cam programming channel. I'll add you to my list
Thank you!! 🙏
It's next to impossible to avoid the full-stack step at the beginning of the journey. Most companies are the ones who need a full-stack dev with a shallow knowledge.
Also it's a skill that helps you become a good fit for the CTO role at a company.
At the end of the day, it's just a trade-off.
Fully agree with you that if you want to become a CTO, being fullstack is absolutely necessary. So it for sure also depends on the path you want to take in your career.
thanks for the video, perfect timing for me as well haha.also, any updates on the course?
Thank you so much! Appreciate it!
Definitely join the newsletter (footer of the website) to stay up to date on the course development. I’ll release a newsletter about it soon. I’m working as hard as I can on it, but I also got delayed a bit because I had to migrate away from Next App directory because bugs took too much time… Will send out an email with more background on that story this week!
wise words from a wise man. i totally agree with what you said.
I am learning python my first ever programming language so is front-end development possible through python?
Thank you, I really needed to hear this ❤
awesome advice Thank you very much !!
thanks. my thought totally aligns with you
why next.js is not enough for your platform ?
It’s not that next isn’t good enough per se. The issue is the app directly still has a lot of issues that pop up every now and then. That resulted in my losing weeks in debugging time, which is really valuable time when building a company. So in the end I decided that the best bet was to look at alternatives.
@@frontendfyi which stack did u use to build your website bro
thanks so much about this great advice
thanks man
this was needed!
lol, you forget that AI will make everyone full stack in around a year.
wow the quality 😍😍
Awww thanks!! ❤️
Love your content
Thank you! Appreciate it!
100% correct
Clone gsap smooth animation màn
Hahaha! It's on my list, but it's a BIG project 🤯 Probably can't handle that right now while building the Framer Motion course. It might eventually land though, but it could be that it will be part of the Framer course and not (fully) public on UA-cam.
@@frontendfyi make sections, svg scroll animation, pin scrub possible with framer?