What is and what does a full stack web Developer do?

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I’ve been looking for that term and I don’t quite understand the function of this IT professional. What is a "full stack web Developer"?

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It’s the one who deals so much with the back-end (the server side), as for the front-end (the side of customers, browsers).

The back-end involves at least one programming language, and usually a database (which is usually SQL, but may be of another type, noSQL or key-value pairs). The front-end involves HTML, CSS and Javascript (as well as other tools and frameworks linked to these technologies).

The whole set is called a "stack", because it is a "stack" of technologies (think of the server technologies below, and the client technologies above). So "full-stack" is that developer that handles all the layers of the stack, and not just a part of them.

I found a article on Sitepoint where the author tells what it’s like to be a developer full stack currently, including listing many of the technologies you may have to deal with. It includes the following illustration of the development layers:

Ilustração das camadas de desenvolvimento web

The figure may imply that the more server-oriented, the more arid the developer’s life, while on the client side everything is beautiful and the puppies stroll happily on a sunny day. But the reality is not quite so no :)

  • Remembering that this directly interferes with a team’s performance, full-stack professionals are usually overwhelmed, causing their efficiency to drop significantly.

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    The @Rodrigoborth is right, but I think it is worth differentiating a professional with attributions in all this range of one who knows how to act in it. That is, I believe that the expression can also be used to refer to a skilled professional (i.e., with formal knowledge and practical experience) in various technologies of each layer.

  • @Rodrigoborth I consider myself a full-stack professional, although I don’t always have to deal with all layers. But I’m not sure if that’s why I live in such a state...

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    P.S.: The cat on the left is in caffeine. It must have turned the night programming... :)

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    @Luizvieira And who will be the dog? Maybe the user. Because it doesn’t seem angry enough to be the customer or the boss :)

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    If he had carried a tree branch between his teeth (playing fetch!) I was gonna say he was a stakeholder (ba.dum.tss! ). Oh, that was a joke, go! :)

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    @bfavaretto if you walk overloaded, really can be by working full stack, but perhaps the cause of his stack overflow be another ;)

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    Maybe the full-stack professional is overloaded but the fragmentation leads to a unique way of thinking, innovation comes when we have the junction of previous knowledge, of course this gives to do with more than one person, but it is very limited. full-stack is excellent for managing teams, Scrum-master. a good example of non-functional splitting rs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg

  • @Bacco Part of the cause is Stack Overflow itself, no doubt!

  • @Isvaldofernandes I’ve been in many meetings like this, rs!

  • @bfavaretto, idem, worked in a team that was considered "experts" so this type of meeting was very common, full-stack is the best alternative in new projects, where do not know where exactly we want to get.

  • Very good gentlemen; discussion of intelligent people is another level. Congratulations to all of you!

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    I consider myself a full-stack Developer with emphasis on back-end. This means that I can usually understand how the front end works and opine how it should be, as well as acting temporarily on the front end when needed. That nay means working on both back and front in the same project, let alone at the same time. In my experience, a "full stack" or something like that is needed at some point or else there will be communication difficulties and priorities between back-end and front-end developers.

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    There is only one thing that spoke in this answer: put the devil with a trident, fire and a lot of mess under that brown layer there. :)

  • Then a good freelancer, in general, is a developer full stack? As well as dealing with back and front it also deals with many other things (project management, pickup and client interpreter, etc)

  • @Guilhermecostamilam In general, yes - I think.

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Full stack web Developer is a developer profile that can work not only with a certain type of programming but also reasonably understand a number of other technologies involved in a system: database, infrastructure, operating system, web server, network, CSS/HTML, Javascript, etc.

These professionals can solve a wide range of problems of this whole "stack" and, when they need help, they need little instruction from a professional specialist in said technology to be able to proceed alone. Professionals with this profile are also highly valued on account facilitate communication between the different areas participating in a project, since it understands well a little of each, functioning as a middleman and speeding up solutions.

Contrary to what is thought, it is not necessary to be an experienced developer to consider yourself "full stack". This can occur perfectly in the first years of the professional, just have the same contact with these different technologies, which usually occurs in smaller companies, startups (where there is not always a dedicated professional for each technology) or companies that value this type of professional.

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There is no formal definition for this term, there are different views on the limits of attributions and even criticism on the part of some. The most commonly accepted definition is the one described by the @bfavaretto response. However, there is a lot of debate on the subject on the internet.

Not infrequently, companies require a full-stack Veloper to act not only with back-end + front-end development. Infrastructure, QA, business analysis and customer interaction are among the developer’s responsibilities. This view is shared by several developers.

With the debate about the attributions of a full-stack Veloper, it is argued that the full-stack Developer covers all (or almost all) software development steps.


Additional reading:

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This term describes those who have the facility to understand the various aspects at the level of technologies that constitute a system, whether on the client side or on the server side.

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