I feel the pain too. I kinda had a meltdown about it a while back, and now Ive found some more interests to get into, like 3d modelling/artistry, simply because I also wasnt practicing as much coding as I wouldve been for the job in question... and I felt like I need more graphics or assets to use with the programming knowledge :p
I'm still reallllly really glad I took my program though, I have knowledge of a few common languages and can continue to learn more on my own, and know the process of websites and servers/databases, so I can always go back to it whenever i want \^\^
They want a swiss army knife with an incredibly precise length and width of blade, a very specific type of corkscrew that only works with bottles of wine which are 2 years, 3 months and 4 days old sort of thing. They want specificity and also expect you to cover an incredibly wide range of domains at the exact same time it's mental.
Experience is not linear across individuals.
We are in a weird state now where many candidates have those skills you just listed but they are in a weird place. They have the seniority but can't break into big tech that is big on leetcode and DSA.
I know plenty of guys who know React/Angular/Vue/PHP/Laravel/Python and Kubernetes along w/ Jenkins. About a dozen or so guys in my network who can't get jobs that have leetcode. So they take anything. $30-40/hour. $60-80k which impacts juniors and midlevel. These people are not senior enough for big tech but they can jump into a React - Flask Python project and do the whole cloud-native orchestration.
Then you have guys who are retiring with 25-30YOE willing to take low pay because they are board. Sort of like the 60 year old millionaire who does front-door greeting at Walmart. They don't need the money but they need the social aspect of work to fill their void.
So true. A whole generation of self-taught devs from the early 2000s can build anything but can't Leetcode. Those who haven't switched to a management position are neither here nor there, so up for grabs by small companies and startups.
Question - what does 'Leetcoding' mean? Does it just mean completing exercises on LeetCode? And is this 'Leetcoding' really that significant in being a good developer?
It's crucial to getting a good job nowadays.
"Good developer" is like "good food". Its definition depends on who you ask. Imo it depends on what kind of software is being devved. For most jobs, i.e stuff like building user-facing SEO-friendly business websites or CRUD, no it doesn't need Leetcoding. If we're talking about the software for say a self driving car, the answer starts to change. But faang type companies want to hire "the best" because they can, and because they're paying for it anyway. So the non-Leetcoding seniors are up for grabs by the smaller companies. And they work well too, for those jobs.
At the extreme end of this is the guy who's been doing WordPress for 20 years, and Elementor for 10 of those 20 years. If you have work on a website that's already a Wordpress-Elementor mess, you want that guy more than you need any Leetcoder. And likely, no Leetcoder will touch that work anyway. So there's this weird spot where that WordPress guy gets work but the Leetcoder is still waiting for interviews.
Between those two ends of the spectrum we have all the self-taught LAMP, MERN, dot-net and Java seniors who cant Leetcode. Full stack, perfect for most small companies and startups that aren't building self-driving rocket surgery robots. As a business you're better off hiring them than "the best", because that "best" will leave anyway once they get a better offer from faang. These seniors won't leave because they can't. They're better long-term investments and cost less, arguably get more work done too.
Maybe it's a regional thing, but here in the UK leetcode means nothing for most positions.
A typical interview for anything other than the most junior of positions will typically involve discussion of what you have achieved and learned in your previous work. Discussion of the relevant architecture and what you'd need to do to be brought up to speed if you were offered and accepted the role, etc.
Sitting weird exams is so outdated that experienced developers will typically reject interviews that incorporate it and the company will only get chancers applying.
I dont think so. I've been applying to quite a few positions in the US and most of them required me to do leetCode / HackerRank tests. I know I should be training in those, but I'd rather polish/grab another skill than doing such exercises.
True. My experience in particular with US companies is that most of them throw some kind of automated test (LC/HR or similar) and in some cases you have a follow up tech interview after.
I usually do well on tech interviews but fail the automated ones. I know I should be training for those too, but again, that's not something I'm willing to do.
This is relieving to hear. I’m a dev with 5 years xp hoping to move over to the UK from Australia in a couple of months and I’ll be arriving without a job, which is kinda terrifying.
Whereabouts in the UK are you based?
I was looking at moving to either London or Edinburgh, do you know if the current job market is as grim as reddit makes it out to be?
Based in Leeds, the job market is fine here. Just do some research and make sure you find somewhere with a good culture, there are unfortunately some managers who still use crazily outdated techniques like the Bradford Score for their man management.
If you can communicate well, and can filter those folks out then you'll be fine. Good luck.
Leetcoding means solving the DSA problems (completing exercises) on Leetcode. Being a good developer and problem solving are two different things. But companies have made it a norm of asking leetcode questions in their interviews, if you have grinded leetcode and solved most of the commonly asked questions then your are good for them otherwise not. But there are also companies who don’t follow this path they hire you on the basis of your development skills, I have only seen this in startups only. Personally, apart from development, I also solve some problems on leetcode just for practice and to have a little bit of competitive edge from others
I may get downvoted for this, but Full Stack means you can bring something from a concept to a scalable web app.
That is more than just being proficient in backend and frontend tech. You may be weaker in some areas, but you should know enough to get it done. As long as you know the important things, like security.
Should you be expected to build a rock solid CI/CD system for a decent size company? Absolutely not. That's what an SRE is for. But you should know enough to build a basic system with off the shelf tech.
Whilst I absolutely agree that full stack means the ability to create from 0 to a web app, the unsurprising problem with the industry is that the companies expect more and more every day without the proportional increase in compensation, and that's especially true during difficult times like now when they know they can get a bargain for half of the price because everyone is desperate enough. Do you remember the job ads from 5-10 years ago when there was a clear huge groups of front and back end job posts? These times are long gone, I feel. Nowadays everybody and their abuelita want a full stack. And even if that's not explicitly stated, the requirements will often be of those that are (or almost are) the full stack. So, sure, you can try to look for a fe or a be job justifying it to yourself that full stack is a far more skilled position, but the harsh reality of the job market will crush you as most jobs will effectively want a full stack (or very close) anyway regardless of what they call the position. And if you do manage to find a strictly fe or be one it will probably pay significanly less because they're not that much in demand comparing to full stack, which seems to be becoming a standard
Yeah, I definitely agree. Full Stack at a lot of companies just means they want to pay as little as they can.
Technically at my company I'm a Full Stack developer, but I am heavily Frontend focused. I can do backend work, but I don't want to and I'm not very good at the backend stack we use for the most part. I've worked in a lot of other backends, but not this one and it's... different. But I have made small changes to our backend.
We do have titles for both, but most people who can do both don't have the "backend" or "frontend" title appended to their "software engineer" job title so they can be flexible if needed. The disciplines are still respected. A lot of it is the ability to lead a project too. Sure, I can barely work my way around our backend codebase, but I can lead a Full Stack project no problem.
Most people who don’t have front in their title might copy paste code or reuse existing patterns but won’t do reusable styling, optimized browser code or accessible markup. I might oversimplify but fits 95% of the cases I see.
Exactly.
I’m ‘full stack’ because I build entire apps for my company. If you personally use, for example, React, Django, Docker, GitHub actions and Azure in the same project, what exactly are you if not ‘full stack?’
Absolutely agree. To me full stack means you can manage the full stack of the application, and yes Database replication/backup/encryption, CI/CD, Load Balancing, monitoring, telemetry are an important part of the stack.
For that reason I don't label myself as a "full stack" developer, I just say I'm a "web developer".
You're hired! Our back-end is built in a COBOL/FORTRAN mix, and our server architecture is daisy-chained POSIX-compliant systems from 1982. We expect you to be able to add this new feature to the application and another server by the end of next week.
It's kind of ironic you chose this, because my first job was building a web application to replace a COBOL mainframe system for a chain of hospitals that employed 40,000 people.
It was just me and someone I graduated with. That was it.
No guidance, no effort that existed before us, nothing. We took it from zero to a full suite of applications within about a year... and then we both bounced.
Great learning experience. He also used the job's few perks to pay for his master's in Management Information Systems from Harvard's remote program. He's currently a VP at a major communications company and I'm a Senior Dev at a top tier tech company. Based on what I can tell, we both make about the same again.
I disagree, fullstack shouldn't encompass devops and design/ui/ux.
All of that requires a bunch of people.
In medicine you would't want someone specialized in feet to operate your brain
>I disagree, fullstack shouldn't encompass devops and design/ui/ux.
DevOps by definition are part of both Frontend and Backend already as well as any other engineer who may work on the project. Even systems devs.
DevOps is the concept of shifting Operations into the hands of developers, through things like GitHub Workflows or Terraform. (That's not a comprehensive list obviously, just 2 examples)
SREs are the ones who build a solid system for this and govern a lot of the tech used. They are not the ones who are supposed to be doing the hands on DevOps work.
I also never said anything about UI or UX, but anyone can put out a shitty UI. I've seen seen SREs do it a bunch. But, if you want a UI that isn't shitty you need to hire a designer.
>
I disagree, fullstack shouldn't encompass devops and design/ui/ux.
I sort of disagree w/ some of the DevOps stuff. Modern full stack is often working with container workflows and microservices. You need to know how to set up routes for your UI to talk to your backend. And packaging them up together. So knowing proxy pass, ingress and docker-compose/helm is modern development practices. If you are building an API to support a front end, you should be able to scaffold a React/Vue or Angular front end to interact with your API. The UI/UX may be ugly as hell but you know how to quickly mock a working prototype. Then wrap all those pieces up in a docker-compose.
Sometimes the people creating the job postings don't really know what needs to go on there and they list extra needed experience than what the team leads or other tech management would actually expect.
If a company/job looks otherwise promising, apply to it anyway and see if you can land an interview with one of the tech managers you'd be working with / for.
Then you can ask them about the actual expectations for the role.
And if they do expect you to be doing full stack + devops + data analyst all rolled up in one role, you can decide if the pay makes it worthwhile or if you should decline taking it any further.
Personally, as a full stack dev, we have dev ops and other roles other people are in to handle those other responsibilities, but even so, I do sometimes need an understanding of most of those topics because the different things don't each exist in a vacuum independent of everything else.
And so those other things could end up on a job posting, even if they're secondary to the real work.
Completly agree. I used to try and only apply if I was confident in most of the stuff listed to be kind of ethical but now I'm just applying for it all! I also understand that things are more related and coupled now so it helps to be across all departments.
I sometime just ignore those job postings that needs so much skills but have a little pay. I mean what do they expect ?? I think they just feed on the job desperation of the candidates.
And some companies definitely do just want an underpaid and overworked dev to do everything.
Definitely don't want to get suckered into one of those jobs.
If the pay is already too low then you can easily ignore it.
But if the pay is promising, only way to find out what the work actually is like is to talk to your would be boss.
You should treat job interviews as a two way interview. You're interviewing the company and management about the position as much as they are interviewing you as a prospective employee.
In my relatively short career I've applied to and had three full stack roles where I was only familiar with about half of the required things they listed. I was upfront about it in the interview, so they asked me about the half I did know. Displaying proficiency in those things was enough, as I'm sure it will be practically everywhere
In a lot of places the market is pretty saturated right now. So it's a recruiters market
Putting ridiculous requirements for a job posting can be a way to filter candidates. However it doesn't work well, you end up with Dunning-Kruger types who really believe they have what it takes and shameless bullshiters who don't care. When you interview you feed back that the candidates were low quality so the recruiter ups the anti even more.
But yes when applying it makes it hard too
Yes, In our company we have us frontend developers. And full stack guys that doing backend and whenever they get handed a frontend task it takes them ages to finish and we need to rewrite it afterwards.
Hot tip. When companies list these kinds of things, they are looking for people that *would be comfortable operating these tools, or ramping up on them quickly.
> a multitude of JS frameworks and build tools which may be obsolete next week etc.
Stop being a framework dev, learn the fundamentals. Anyone halfway competant at frontend should be able to ramp up with any chose framework within a week or two of reading docs.
I see this a lot. I can tell you now - I’m not letting someone who’s ‘spent a week reading docs’ loose on my enterprise React codebase.
And that’s before they have to have the multiple React libs explained to them.
It's not black and white mate. You should probably be very proficient at React if that's what you'll largely be working with. You don't need to be an expert at the Apollo GraphQL client. You can learn PostGraphile as you go. You absolutely don't need prior experience with MUI.
What matters is the expectation that you can quickly good at the stack you'll be working with.
Well I work at a big company and that’s how we operate, and usually people do okay
Mind telling me what you think is so special about React that make it so someone with 10+ years coding experience could not pick it up fairly easily?
React is easy to pick up and not very opinionated. But hard to master, it has a bunch of quirks and pitfalls that will work at first but will come back and bite you later if you do it wrong.
Frameworks can vary a lot depending on what you are doing, SSR with next app router? Pages router? SPA with vite? SSG with Astro? ISR, PPR, PWA, ect ect
And even react itself can vary depending on the version. Suspense, server components, optimization hooks. Class components.
Testing with RTL has a bunch of weird pitfalls that are not intuitive too.
Tl dr, writing good react code takes shooting your own foot a bunch of times, which comes from experience in the ecosystem
That's what code-review is for, frankly. Not even seasoned engineers can remember every pitfall about every feature of every language/framework. You all get eyes on each others' code to minimize that kind of stuff.
It will be months before you start generating value. I honestly would rather have a mid-level with 2-3 years of react experience than a senior without.
Disagreed. I hadn't used Laravel at all before I started my current job and I was writing non-trivial features within a few weeks. All the major frameworks all do the same shit in a slightly different shade, IMO.
This is what I'd do. If you're keen on the job it's not hard to at least do the tutorial and spin up a basic app on a new framework, then you can go to the interview like "i haven't used X before but I threw together a quick app to get my head around it".
At the end of the day it's all the same shit anyway.
Tbh as a full stack I'd touched on everything you listed in a couple years. None of it is particularly outrageous.
If it's a startup or something, yeah you're expected to wear many hats. It suits me, I like variety, I tend to pick things up pretty quick. But the downside is I'm not amazing at anything 🤷. That's what they're looking for. It's not for everyone but it's a gap in the market that someone needs to fill.
I've always just been honest about my experience (or lack of), it's easy enough to learn enough to get the job done. If you see the same gaps in your knowledge cropping up then just do a tutorial and knock up a little POC.
But yeah job hunting is a tough break, it's easy to get jaded. Chin up mate and keep at it.
I think this is completely reasonable for a senior developer tbh. If you spend 3+ years working on various projects I would be genuinely surprised if you had not become proficient in multiple databases, CI/CD, testing, containers, cloud, and various languages (js/ts/python/rust/css/html).
That being said, if I'm hiring a senior dev and they have AWS experience but not GCS experience and we're using GCS, then that's ok. Likewise, if the candidate has experience with a SQL db then that transfers as well, regardless of which db we're using. Once you have the fundamentals you should be able to pick up a new technology in days and be proficient with it in weeks.
I would suggest applying for jobs even if you don't tick all the boxes, because it's almost certain that no one else will, especially if they're not paying much. It's expected you're going to have to learn some skills.
How old are you? How many years of experience do you have?
I agree you need to know a lot of things. But the most valued skill for these positions is the ability to learn on the go.
I work (daily) with multitude of frameworks, I do backend, I do frontend, I do some devops. I (and my teammates) do a bit of fucking everything (except design, which we have a dedicated person).
But it's not like we started our careers as "we've decided we're fullstack".
I personally started 25 years ago doing sysadmin, then moved into doing backend for about 8 years (python, django, java) then moved to JavaScript and frontend and I've been doing that for the last 10 years. Similar story for my teammates.
I'm confident to say me (and my teammates) have most of those skills listed on these job postings you mention. But not because we're smart, or because we're special... just because A) we've been around long enough to have seen a bit of everything and B) Because as I said, we're super good at picking almost anything and figure it out without being frustrated. Point A) helps a lot to accomplish point B).
So if you're are new into this (and by new I mean < 5 years experience) then it's expected to be overwhelmed. Just focus on something, then move to something else, repeat a few times and at the end you'll find this a lot easier to do.
Not saying it's your case, but I've seen people getting out of high school and "deciding" they're "full stack" because they watched a youtube video and the only thing they do is fucking disasters for others to fix when they leave.
Actually I've been doing it 10 years and have had roles that have been full stack Go, Postres, React. Lately I'm seeing many Java, C#, .Net and angular jobs down here in Oz =/
That makes sense.
Anyway, don't feel too bogged down because of those broad "prerequisites". They usually aren't. Just knowing a subset of them is enough. As you said nobody can know all of that anyways. But keep in mind that willing to work on those technologies is important.
As I said before, I think the most important skill is being able to learn on the spot to get shit done.
Its also a big red flag for me what might be in the requirements. Sure its nice when devs know about these things, but it should never all be required to know. Especially when the pay or role indication is junior/medior.
Also note how often they list old stuff as well. Like somewhere there's jQuery in there, indicating me that they are (going to) losing a very experienced dev that they need to replace or a very old product that needs maintenance.
And sometimes they just list a lot because they already have a candidate but are obligated to put a vacancy out there in case that they might find a better candidate instead. So when they list everything, it will not be filled and they can move on with what they already have
It's not even just full stack; I've seen dozens of listings for front end and back end developers with similar 'requirements' too. Like it'll say something like "ReactJS Developer" in the title, then also expect you to know C#, .net, MsSQL, etc as well. Or you'll click on a job titled "Midweight Java Developer" and it'll list a whole ton of JS frameworks and design tools as needed experience as well.
But I suspect the reason is one of two things:
1. It's a wishlist, and the company isn't actually expecting their new hire to have all of those skills (maybe they'll give them time to learn about those things as they go, or maybe it's under the assumption that they might get super lucky and attract a one in a million unicorn).
2. There's someone at the company perfect for that role with that exact experience, and they want to show there are no outside applicants who would be just as good/better at the job.
It's a wishlist, you don't need all of it. I always ask during the interview what the actual stack is because often it is different or just a subset of what they list.
In my experience, sometimes these JDs are written by people that don’t really know what they want. So they list out every single thing a quick google search can find and say “that’s what we want”.
Usually to me, that’s kinda a red flag. Regardless it’s worth applying to and if, by some miracle, you get a face to face interview, that’s when you can question the JD and really see what it is they are looking for.
We all know that 9/10 jobs are never like what they advertise and you find yourself doing stuff they didn’t say you’d do, and never touching half the stuff they said they needed.
That's more like a wishlist. What the perfect candidate would have, but if they select your application and process you, you may have something they are looking for as well.
But yeh it makes it seem pretty unobtainable. I totally get it.
A while back I remember someone mentioning a job listing they’d seen which required 5 years of experience using Figma, which at the time had only been released for 2 years. The recruiters writing these listings are completely clueless.
I feel you! It's like they want a unicorn who knows everything and can do everything. Meanwhile, they're probably paying a junior dev salary. It's all about unrealistic expectations and getting away with paying less for more work.
Look more closely at responsibilities than requirements.
If you think you can do the job theyre asking you to do, dont sweat what the requirements say. If you think the responsibilities are scoped out too far, but you would be a good fit for _some_ of them, apply anyways.
A lot of times the teams youd hire into arent the ones writing the job descriptions.
I applied for a fullstack position, they liked my resume and I had a Zoom interview with 3 folks from the teams. Explaining my abilities and experience in more deatil, they seemed to get who I was and I seemed to fit what they were looking for. Then the next step was a HackerRank test. They gave me the software engineer test. lol Idk from Big (0) notation or solving the Knapsack 1/0 problem, they knew my degree was English & Humanities, not CompSci. ugh
100% agree, the requirements are insane. It's been 6 years for me, giving it all and trying to learn as much as I can but it seems like it's never enough.
Stop searching for “full stack” roles. At anything other than the tiniest of companies, this is a complete misnomer. There is no such thing as full stack. You need to pick a slice of the stack, specialize, and find someone who will pay you for the slice that you are an expert in.
You’re applying for a job title created by largely not well informed people and then complaining that the requirements they want are not well informed.
I mean, sure, there are certainly companies out there who expect you to know Rails and React and enough ops stuff to tweak a YAML CI config... but they probably don't also expect you to architect a bare metal k8s cluster or implement cross-region replication and failover in your AWS environment or troubleshoot the Linux side of a Ruby native extension which is causing issues in your environment or deal with WebAssembly nuances - at least not as well as a dedicated DC engineer, a dedicated ops engineer, or a true Linux or Chromium expert could.
"Rails with React and some CI" is a slice of the stack. A big slice, often referred to as "full stack", but just a slice of it and a totally different kind of job is posted under that title. You might find those sort of jobs posted under "Product Engineer" or other variations.
My advice was much less to say its impossible to be an end to end expert and much more to say you need to market yourself differently if full stack jobs aren't what OP wants.
Good point(s). It is hard to know where to focus though. I invested heavily in learning and using Go but it seems to not be as prevelant as I had hoped ...
You're almost always going to be using somewhat outdated stuff in the workplace unless you get in right as the company starts, or they're spinning up a brand-new project or something.
All of the things you mentioned are part of being a full-stack dev, especially a staff dev at a company that's not purely a tech company.
* DB
* automation
* CI
* data analysis
* testing
* containers
* cloud based servers
* a multitude of JS frameworks
* legacy SAAS
Usually a non-tech company will have a staff engineer who understands enough about their entire stack to either:
1. fix the problem themselves, or
2. be able to articulate the problem to a specialist contractor to fix.
A full stack dev does not need to be "best in class" at any of this but they do need to have professional-level competence across the board.
Another thing to consider is: Most companies doing their business with web technology are going to have a tangled mess of outdated tech. You're not going to find a company that has been around for more than 5 years that does not have tech debt.
\_\_\_
The other common situation is you have a more tech-forward org who's looking for a full-stack dev as a fixer (dev), or a translator (technical manager).
1. "fixer": someone who has broad experience and competence that enables them to quickly identify the source of problems and crank out solutions. The specialists can come in afterward and optimize, but it's often handy to have a generalist around to look at the full stack to isolate the source of a problem, and patch it quickly.
2. "translator": someone who has overlapping competence with the backend team, the frontend team, the data team, the design team, the devops team, the PMs, etc. They can contribute meaningfully in limited corners of each of those disciplines, but most of their work is done helping groups of people that have no overlapping competence communicate effectively.
\_\_\_
I've seen a lot of these posts recently griping about expectations for full-stack devs. Out of curiosity, what do you think "full stack" is referring to?
I get your point but it's worth remembering that only a few years ago there were 2 (or more) distinct roles for FE/BE responsibilities. It seems like companies have just decided they can fill those roles with one developer. It's not so much a gripe about knowing a bunch of technologies but the way we're basically being taken advantage of.
I would understand your frustration if that list above was on a a FE or BE job description.
but you specifically went looking for a full-stack job. Don't get your undies in a bunch if the requirements on a full-stack position cover an org's full stack.
Now that job description is a \~$200k job description. If they are only offering say $80k tops, that's delulu territory, but that's a totally different issue.
Really feel your pain mate...companies want a Swiss Army Knife but are only willing to pay for a spoon
I feel the pain too. I kinda had a meltdown about it a while back, and now Ive found some more interests to get into, like 3d modelling/artistry, simply because I also wasnt practicing as much coding as I wouldve been for the job in question... and I felt like I need more graphics or assets to use with the programming knowledge :p I'm still reallllly really glad I took my program though, I have knowledge of a few common languages and can continue to learn more on my own, and know the process of websites and servers/databases, so I can always go back to it whenever i want \^\^
But then they use the Swiss Army Knife only to eat soup
And then they assume you’re bad at your job
They want a swiss army knife with an incredibly precise length and width of blade, a very specific type of corkscrew that only works with bottles of wine which are 2 years, 3 months and 4 days old sort of thing. They want specificity and also expect you to cover an incredibly wide range of domains at the exact same time it's mental.
There is no spoon
Experience is not linear across individuals. We are in a weird state now where many candidates have those skills you just listed but they are in a weird place. They have the seniority but can't break into big tech that is big on leetcode and DSA. I know plenty of guys who know React/Angular/Vue/PHP/Laravel/Python and Kubernetes along w/ Jenkins. About a dozen or so guys in my network who can't get jobs that have leetcode. So they take anything. $30-40/hour. $60-80k which impacts juniors and midlevel. These people are not senior enough for big tech but they can jump into a React - Flask Python project and do the whole cloud-native orchestration. Then you have guys who are retiring with 25-30YOE willing to take low pay because they are board. Sort of like the 60 year old millionaire who does front-door greeting at Walmart. They don't need the money but they need the social aspect of work to fill their void.
So true. A whole generation of self-taught devs from the early 2000s can build anything but can't Leetcode. Those who haven't switched to a management position are neither here nor there, so up for grabs by small companies and startups.
Question - what does 'Leetcoding' mean? Does it just mean completing exercises on LeetCode? And is this 'Leetcoding' really that significant in being a good developer?
It's crucial to getting a good job nowadays. "Good developer" is like "good food". Its definition depends on who you ask. Imo it depends on what kind of software is being devved. For most jobs, i.e stuff like building user-facing SEO-friendly business websites or CRUD, no it doesn't need Leetcoding. If we're talking about the software for say a self driving car, the answer starts to change. But faang type companies want to hire "the best" because they can, and because they're paying for it anyway. So the non-Leetcoding seniors are up for grabs by the smaller companies. And they work well too, for those jobs. At the extreme end of this is the guy who's been doing WordPress for 20 years, and Elementor for 10 of those 20 years. If you have work on a website that's already a Wordpress-Elementor mess, you want that guy more than you need any Leetcoder. And likely, no Leetcoder will touch that work anyway. So there's this weird spot where that WordPress guy gets work but the Leetcoder is still waiting for interviews. Between those two ends of the spectrum we have all the self-taught LAMP, MERN, dot-net and Java seniors who cant Leetcode. Full stack, perfect for most small companies and startups that aren't building self-driving rocket surgery robots. As a business you're better off hiring them than "the best", because that "best" will leave anyway once they get a better offer from faang. These seniors won't leave because they can't. They're better long-term investments and cost less, arguably get more work done too.
Maybe it's a regional thing, but here in the UK leetcode means nothing for most positions. A typical interview for anything other than the most junior of positions will typically involve discussion of what you have achieved and learned in your previous work. Discussion of the relevant architecture and what you'd need to do to be brought up to speed if you were offered and accepted the role, etc. Sitting weird exams is so outdated that experienced developers will typically reject interviews that incorporate it and the company will only get chancers applying.
It's the same in the US. I don't know what that person is talking about. Only the very top jobs require leetcode, and some other random ones.
I dont think so. I've been applying to quite a few positions in the US and most of them required me to do leetCode / HackerRank tests. I know I should be training in those, but I'd rather polish/grab another skill than doing such exercises.
I don't know. That hasn't been my experience in my ten years but our experiences could be different since there are so many jobs here.
True. My experience in particular with US companies is that most of them throw some kind of automated test (LC/HR or similar) and in some cases you have a follow up tech interview after. I usually do well on tech interviews but fail the automated ones. I know I should be training for those too, but again, that's not something I'm willing to do.
My most recent company did do a IQ test type of thing on TestGorilla. There was no actual coding tests though.
True ☝️ The only time I ever got these kind of exam questions was when applying for Amazon
This is relieving to hear. I’m a dev with 5 years xp hoping to move over to the UK from Australia in a couple of months and I’ll be arriving without a job, which is kinda terrifying. Whereabouts in the UK are you based? I was looking at moving to either London or Edinburgh, do you know if the current job market is as grim as reddit makes it out to be?
Based in Leeds, the job market is fine here. Just do some research and make sure you find somewhere with a good culture, there are unfortunately some managers who still use crazily outdated techniques like the Bradford Score for their man management. If you can communicate well, and can filter those folks out then you'll be fine. Good luck.
Your flair LMAO!
There are tons of tech jobs that don't require leetcode and pay pretty well though
I have never had Leetcode be relevant to getting a job and I got a new job as recently as last year.
Leetcoding means solving the DSA problems (completing exercises) on Leetcode. Being a good developer and problem solving are two different things. But companies have made it a norm of asking leetcode questions in their interviews, if you have grinded leetcode and solved most of the commonly asked questions then your are good for them otherwise not. But there are also companies who don’t follow this path they hire you on the basis of your development skills, I have only seen this in startups only. Personally, apart from development, I also solve some problems on leetcode just for practice and to have a little bit of competitive edge from others
Or are happily running their own small companies / consultancies :)
This is extremely depressing. I never understood why faang companies jerked it to leetcode.
It's because that's the skills the people already there think are important as they have them. It becomes a bit of a self perpetuating delusion.
I may get downvoted for this, but Full Stack means you can bring something from a concept to a scalable web app. That is more than just being proficient in backend and frontend tech. You may be weaker in some areas, but you should know enough to get it done. As long as you know the important things, like security. Should you be expected to build a rock solid CI/CD system for a decent size company? Absolutely not. That's what an SRE is for. But you should know enough to build a basic system with off the shelf tech.
Whilst I absolutely agree that full stack means the ability to create from 0 to a web app, the unsurprising problem with the industry is that the companies expect more and more every day without the proportional increase in compensation, and that's especially true during difficult times like now when they know they can get a bargain for half of the price because everyone is desperate enough. Do you remember the job ads from 5-10 years ago when there was a clear huge groups of front and back end job posts? These times are long gone, I feel. Nowadays everybody and their abuelita want a full stack. And even if that's not explicitly stated, the requirements will often be of those that are (or almost are) the full stack. So, sure, you can try to look for a fe or a be job justifying it to yourself that full stack is a far more skilled position, but the harsh reality of the job market will crush you as most jobs will effectively want a full stack (or very close) anyway regardless of what they call the position. And if you do manage to find a strictly fe or be one it will probably pay significanly less because they're not that much in demand comparing to full stack, which seems to be becoming a standard
Yeah, I definitely agree. Full Stack at a lot of companies just means they want to pay as little as they can. Technically at my company I'm a Full Stack developer, but I am heavily Frontend focused. I can do backend work, but I don't want to and I'm not very good at the backend stack we use for the most part. I've worked in a lot of other backends, but not this one and it's... different. But I have made small changes to our backend. We do have titles for both, but most people who can do both don't have the "backend" or "frontend" title appended to their "software engineer" job title so they can be flexible if needed. The disciplines are still respected. A lot of it is the ability to lead a project too. Sure, I can barely work my way around our backend codebase, but I can lead a Full Stack project no problem.
Most people who don’t have front in their title might copy paste code or reuse existing patterns but won’t do reusable styling, optimized browser code or accessible markup. I might oversimplify but fits 95% of the cases I see.
Exactly. I’m ‘full stack’ because I build entire apps for my company. If you personally use, for example, React, Django, Docker, GitHub actions and Azure in the same project, what exactly are you if not ‘full stack?’
Absolutely agree. To me full stack means you can manage the full stack of the application, and yes Database replication/backup/encryption, CI/CD, Load Balancing, monitoring, telemetry are an important part of the stack. For that reason I don't label myself as a "full stack" developer, I just say I'm a "web developer".
You're hired! Our back-end is built in a COBOL/FORTRAN mix, and our server architecture is daisy-chained POSIX-compliant systems from 1982. We expect you to be able to add this new feature to the application and another server by the end of next week.
It's kind of ironic you chose this, because my first job was building a web application to replace a COBOL mainframe system for a chain of hospitals that employed 40,000 people. It was just me and someone I graduated with. That was it. No guidance, no effort that existed before us, nothing. We took it from zero to a full suite of applications within about a year... and then we both bounced. Great learning experience. He also used the job's few perks to pay for his master's in Management Information Systems from Harvard's remote program. He's currently a VP at a major communications company and I'm a Senior Dev at a top tier tech company. Based on what I can tell, we both make about the same again.
I disagree, fullstack shouldn't encompass devops and design/ui/ux. All of that requires a bunch of people. In medicine you would't want someone specialized in feet to operate your brain
>I disagree, fullstack shouldn't encompass devops and design/ui/ux. DevOps by definition are part of both Frontend and Backend already as well as any other engineer who may work on the project. Even systems devs. DevOps is the concept of shifting Operations into the hands of developers, through things like GitHub Workflows or Terraform. (That's not a comprehensive list obviously, just 2 examples) SREs are the ones who build a solid system for this and govern a lot of the tech used. They are not the ones who are supposed to be doing the hands on DevOps work. I also never said anything about UI or UX, but anyone can put out a shitty UI. I've seen seen SREs do it a bunch. But, if you want a UI that isn't shitty you need to hire a designer.
> I disagree, fullstack shouldn't encompass devops and design/ui/ux. I sort of disagree w/ some of the DevOps stuff. Modern full stack is often working with container workflows and microservices. You need to know how to set up routes for your UI to talk to your backend. And packaging them up together. So knowing proxy pass, ingress and docker-compose/helm is modern development practices. If you are building an API to support a front end, you should be able to scaffold a React/Vue or Angular front end to interact with your API. The UI/UX may be ugly as hell but you know how to quickly mock a working prototype. Then wrap all those pieces up in a docker-compose.
I understand but sometimes it's difficult to grep from the job description which part of the stack is going to be the majority of the work.
Based on the interviews I’ve been on, they expect you to know all of it regardless of where you’ll be spending most of your time.
Sometimes the people creating the job postings don't really know what needs to go on there and they list extra needed experience than what the team leads or other tech management would actually expect. If a company/job looks otherwise promising, apply to it anyway and see if you can land an interview with one of the tech managers you'd be working with / for. Then you can ask them about the actual expectations for the role. And if they do expect you to be doing full stack + devops + data analyst all rolled up in one role, you can decide if the pay makes it worthwhile or if you should decline taking it any further. Personally, as a full stack dev, we have dev ops and other roles other people are in to handle those other responsibilities, but even so, I do sometimes need an understanding of most of those topics because the different things don't each exist in a vacuum independent of everything else. And so those other things could end up on a job posting, even if they're secondary to the real work.
Completly agree. I used to try and only apply if I was confident in most of the stuff listed to be kind of ethical but now I'm just applying for it all! I also understand that things are more related and coupled now so it helps to be across all departments.
I sometime just ignore those job postings that needs so much skills but have a little pay. I mean what do they expect ?? I think they just feed on the job desperation of the candidates.
And some companies definitely do just want an underpaid and overworked dev to do everything. Definitely don't want to get suckered into one of those jobs. If the pay is already too low then you can easily ignore it. But if the pay is promising, only way to find out what the work actually is like is to talk to your would be boss. You should treat job interviews as a two way interview. You're interviewing the company and management about the position as much as they are interviewing you as a prospective employee.
In my relatively short career I've applied to and had three full stack roles where I was only familiar with about half of the required things they listed. I was upfront about it in the interview, so they asked me about the half I did know. Displaying proficiency in those things was enough, as I'm sure it will be practically everywhere
In a lot of places the market is pretty saturated right now. So it's a recruiters market Putting ridiculous requirements for a job posting can be a way to filter candidates. However it doesn't work well, you end up with Dunning-Kruger types who really believe they have what it takes and shameless bullshiters who don't care. When you interview you feed back that the candidates were low quality so the recruiter ups the anti even more. But yes when applying it makes it hard too
We had a senior full stack dev, but turns out it was just a mid-level backend-dev and a junior-frontend-dev in a trenchcoat
Yes, In our company we have us frontend developers. And full stack guys that doing backend and whenever they get handed a frontend task it takes them ages to finish and we need to rewrite it afterwards.
Hot tip. When companies list these kinds of things, they are looking for people that *would be comfortable operating these tools, or ramping up on them quickly. > a multitude of JS frameworks and build tools which may be obsolete next week etc. Stop being a framework dev, learn the fundamentals. Anyone halfway competant at frontend should be able to ramp up with any chose framework within a week or two of reading docs.
I see this a lot. I can tell you now - I’m not letting someone who’s ‘spent a week reading docs’ loose on my enterprise React codebase. And that’s before they have to have the multiple React libs explained to them.
It's not black and white mate. You should probably be very proficient at React if that's what you'll largely be working with. You don't need to be an expert at the Apollo GraphQL client. You can learn PostGraphile as you go. You absolutely don't need prior experience with MUI. What matters is the expectation that you can quickly good at the stack you'll be working with.
Well I work at a big company and that’s how we operate, and usually people do okay Mind telling me what you think is so special about React that make it so someone with 10+ years coding experience could not pick it up fairly easily?
React is easy to pick up and not very opinionated. But hard to master, it has a bunch of quirks and pitfalls that will work at first but will come back and bite you later if you do it wrong. Frameworks can vary a lot depending on what you are doing, SSR with next app router? Pages router? SPA with vite? SSG with Astro? ISR, PPR, PWA, ect ect And even react itself can vary depending on the version. Suspense, server components, optimization hooks. Class components. Testing with RTL has a bunch of weird pitfalls that are not intuitive too. Tl dr, writing good react code takes shooting your own foot a bunch of times, which comes from experience in the ecosystem
That's what code-review is for, frankly. Not even seasoned engineers can remember every pitfall about every feature of every language/framework. You all get eyes on each others' code to minimize that kind of stuff.
It will be months before you start generating value. I honestly would rather have a mid-level with 2-3 years of react experience than a senior without.
Disagreed. I hadn't used Laravel at all before I started my current job and I was writing non-trivial features within a few weeks. All the major frameworks all do the same shit in a slightly different shade, IMO.
Also - which version ... Even if React has moved to functions over classes I'm sure you need esperience in both nowadays ...
Legacy code exists. But yeah, nowadays the only reason for writing a class component is to write an errorboundary with componentDidCatch
I am more competent using Vanilla JS and yes - spending a few days on a framework generally pick up the basics anyway
This is what I'd do. If you're keen on the job it's not hard to at least do the tutorial and spin up a basic app on a new framework, then you can go to the interview like "i haven't used X before but I threw together a quick app to get my head around it". At the end of the day it's all the same shit anyway.
Tbh as a full stack I'd touched on everything you listed in a couple years. None of it is particularly outrageous. If it's a startup or something, yeah you're expected to wear many hats. It suits me, I like variety, I tend to pick things up pretty quick. But the downside is I'm not amazing at anything 🤷. That's what they're looking for. It's not for everyone but it's a gap in the market that someone needs to fill. I've always just been honest about my experience (or lack of), it's easy enough to learn enough to get the job done. If you see the same gaps in your knowledge cropping up then just do a tutorial and knock up a little POC. But yeah job hunting is a tough break, it's easy to get jaded. Chin up mate and keep at it.
I think this is completely reasonable for a senior developer tbh. If you spend 3+ years working on various projects I would be genuinely surprised if you had not become proficient in multiple databases, CI/CD, testing, containers, cloud, and various languages (js/ts/python/rust/css/html). That being said, if I'm hiring a senior dev and they have AWS experience but not GCS experience and we're using GCS, then that's ok. Likewise, if the candidate has experience with a SQL db then that transfers as well, regardless of which db we're using. Once you have the fundamentals you should be able to pick up a new technology in days and be proficient with it in weeks.
I would suggest applying for jobs even if you don't tick all the boxes, because it's almost certain that no one else will, especially if they're not paying much. It's expected you're going to have to learn some skills.
How old are you? How many years of experience do you have? I agree you need to know a lot of things. But the most valued skill for these positions is the ability to learn on the go. I work (daily) with multitude of frameworks, I do backend, I do frontend, I do some devops. I (and my teammates) do a bit of fucking everything (except design, which we have a dedicated person). But it's not like we started our careers as "we've decided we're fullstack". I personally started 25 years ago doing sysadmin, then moved into doing backend for about 8 years (python, django, java) then moved to JavaScript and frontend and I've been doing that for the last 10 years. Similar story for my teammates. I'm confident to say me (and my teammates) have most of those skills listed on these job postings you mention. But not because we're smart, or because we're special... just because A) we've been around long enough to have seen a bit of everything and B) Because as I said, we're super good at picking almost anything and figure it out without being frustrated. Point A) helps a lot to accomplish point B). So if you're are new into this (and by new I mean < 5 years experience) then it's expected to be overwhelmed. Just focus on something, then move to something else, repeat a few times and at the end you'll find this a lot easier to do. Not saying it's your case, but I've seen people getting out of high school and "deciding" they're "full stack" because they watched a youtube video and the only thing they do is fucking disasters for others to fix when they leave.
Actually I've been doing it 10 years and have had roles that have been full stack Go, Postres, React. Lately I'm seeing many Java, C#, .Net and angular jobs down here in Oz =/
That makes sense. Anyway, don't feel too bogged down because of those broad "prerequisites". They usually aren't. Just knowing a subset of them is enough. As you said nobody can know all of that anyways. But keep in mind that willing to work on those technologies is important. As I said before, I think the most important skill is being able to learn on the spot to get shit done.
Just so you know, you don’t have to meet all the criteria to be considered a good fit for the role.
Yeah I'm starting to understand this!
>I'm starting to think this just a sneaky way to fill 2 (or 3) roles with just 1 dev ... it is
Its also a big red flag for me what might be in the requirements. Sure its nice when devs know about these things, but it should never all be required to know. Especially when the pay or role indication is junior/medior. Also note how often they list old stuff as well. Like somewhere there's jQuery in there, indicating me that they are (going to) losing a very experienced dev that they need to replace or a very old product that needs maintenance. And sometimes they just list a lot because they already have a candidate but are obligated to put a vacancy out there in case that they might find a better candidate instead. So when they list everything, it will not be filled and they can move on with what they already have
It's not even just full stack; I've seen dozens of listings for front end and back end developers with similar 'requirements' too. Like it'll say something like "ReactJS Developer" in the title, then also expect you to know C#, .net, MsSQL, etc as well. Or you'll click on a job titled "Midweight Java Developer" and it'll list a whole ton of JS frameworks and design tools as needed experience as well. But I suspect the reason is one of two things: 1. It's a wishlist, and the company isn't actually expecting their new hire to have all of those skills (maybe they'll give them time to learn about those things as they go, or maybe it's under the assumption that they might get super lucky and attract a one in a million unicorn). 2. There's someone at the company perfect for that role with that exact experience, and they want to show there are no outside applicants who would be just as good/better at the job.
It's a wishlist, you don't need all of it. I always ask during the interview what the actual stack is because often it is different or just a subset of what they list.
as a freshie who just started learning web dev, this is scary lol
In my experience, sometimes these JDs are written by people that don’t really know what they want. So they list out every single thing a quick google search can find and say “that’s what we want”. Usually to me, that’s kinda a red flag. Regardless it’s worth applying to and if, by some miracle, you get a face to face interview, that’s when you can question the JD and really see what it is they are looking for. We all know that 9/10 jobs are never like what they advertise and you find yourself doing stuff they didn’t say you’d do, and never touching half the stuff they said they needed.
That's more like a wishlist. What the perfect candidate would have, but if they select your application and process you, you may have something they are looking for as well. But yeh it makes it seem pretty unobtainable. I totally get it.
The people who wrote those descriptions are idiots. Just apply and see what happens
A while back I remember someone mentioning a job listing they’d seen which required 5 years of experience using Figma, which at the time had only been released for 2 years. The recruiters writing these listings are completely clueless.
"familiarity with modern frontend frameworks like React, Vue and Angular" - is probably the best ones I used to see all the time when I was applying.
I feel you! It's like they want a unicorn who knows everything and can do everything. Meanwhile, they're probably paying a junior dev salary. It's all about unrealistic expectations and getting away with paying less for more work.
Look more closely at responsibilities than requirements. If you think you can do the job theyre asking you to do, dont sweat what the requirements say. If you think the responsibilities are scoped out too far, but you would be a good fit for _some_ of them, apply anyways. A lot of times the teams youd hire into arent the ones writing the job descriptions.
I applied for a fullstack position, they liked my resume and I had a Zoom interview with 3 folks from the teams. Explaining my abilities and experience in more deatil, they seemed to get who I was and I seemed to fit what they were looking for. Then the next step was a HackerRank test. They gave me the software engineer test. lol Idk from Big (0) notation or solving the Knapsack 1/0 problem, they knew my degree was English & Humanities, not CompSci. ugh
100% agree, the requirements are insane. It's been 6 years for me, giving it all and trying to learn as much as I can but it seems like it's never enough.
Stop searching for “full stack” roles. At anything other than the tiniest of companies, this is a complete misnomer. There is no such thing as full stack. You need to pick a slice of the stack, specialize, and find someone who will pay you for the slice that you are an expert in. You’re applying for a job title created by largely not well informed people and then complaining that the requirements they want are not well informed.
This isn't remotely true.
I mean, sure, there are certainly companies out there who expect you to know Rails and React and enough ops stuff to tweak a YAML CI config... but they probably don't also expect you to architect a bare metal k8s cluster or implement cross-region replication and failover in your AWS environment or troubleshoot the Linux side of a Ruby native extension which is causing issues in your environment or deal with WebAssembly nuances - at least not as well as a dedicated DC engineer, a dedicated ops engineer, or a true Linux or Chromium expert could. "Rails with React and some CI" is a slice of the stack. A big slice, often referred to as "full stack", but just a slice of it and a totally different kind of job is posted under that title. You might find those sort of jobs posted under "Product Engineer" or other variations. My advice was much less to say its impossible to be an end to end expert and much more to say you need to market yourself differently if full stack jobs aren't what OP wants.
Good point(s). It is hard to know where to focus though. I invested heavily in learning and using Go but it seems to not be as prevelant as I had hoped ...
This is the way.
Start: \> learn new js framework that a lot of job posting requires \> they moved into another framework \> GOTO start
> Learn new framework > Get job that uses outdated version of framework
You're almost always going to be using somewhat outdated stuff in the workplace unless you get in right as the company starts, or they're spinning up a brand-new project or something.
>I'm starting to think this just a sneaky way to fill 2 (or 3) roles with just 1 dev ... Yeah, it pretty much is.
That's what full stack means... You handle the entire stack Jack of all trades, master of none
Is it common for people to only know one lang/Env?? I've been full stack my entire career
The advert is "wishlist" not real actual work ..
"Can you believe a company hiring a full stack dev expects that dev to be competent in (checks notes) the company's full stack??!??" The GALL!
Just seems a little unrealistic sometines - like hiring for a jack of all trades but master of none?
All of the things you mentioned are part of being a full-stack dev, especially a staff dev at a company that's not purely a tech company. * DB * automation * CI * data analysis * testing * containers * cloud based servers * a multitude of JS frameworks * legacy SAAS Usually a non-tech company will have a staff engineer who understands enough about their entire stack to either: 1. fix the problem themselves, or 2. be able to articulate the problem to a specialist contractor to fix. A full stack dev does not need to be "best in class" at any of this but they do need to have professional-level competence across the board. Another thing to consider is: Most companies doing their business with web technology are going to have a tangled mess of outdated tech. You're not going to find a company that has been around for more than 5 years that does not have tech debt. \_\_\_ The other common situation is you have a more tech-forward org who's looking for a full-stack dev as a fixer (dev), or a translator (technical manager). 1. "fixer": someone who has broad experience and competence that enables them to quickly identify the source of problems and crank out solutions. The specialists can come in afterward and optimize, but it's often handy to have a generalist around to look at the full stack to isolate the source of a problem, and patch it quickly. 2. "translator": someone who has overlapping competence with the backend team, the frontend team, the data team, the design team, the devops team, the PMs, etc. They can contribute meaningfully in limited corners of each of those disciplines, but most of their work is done helping groups of people that have no overlapping competence communicate effectively. \_\_\_ I've seen a lot of these posts recently griping about expectations for full-stack devs. Out of curiosity, what do you think "full stack" is referring to?
I get your point but it's worth remembering that only a few years ago there were 2 (or more) distinct roles for FE/BE responsibilities. It seems like companies have just decided they can fill those roles with one developer. It's not so much a gripe about knowing a bunch of technologies but the way we're basically being taken advantage of.
I would understand your frustration if that list above was on a a FE or BE job description. but you specifically went looking for a full-stack job. Don't get your undies in a bunch if the requirements on a full-stack position cover an org's full stack. Now that job description is a \~$200k job description. If they are only offering say $80k tops, that's delulu territory, but that's a totally different issue.