More and more developers are becoming part of the job market, and many aim to stand out in their careers. In 2023, a full-stack developer is a promising profession.
It is common to find professionals who know the back end in-depth and know all the details of how to effectively do a cross-platform integration using asynchronous messaging. Or the front-end professional who is an expert in all the nuances of CSS and responsive design. The back-end professional is unfamiliar with the front-end and vice versa. So no developer is aware of everything and anything. Moreover, full-stack developers may need help with programming occasionally, as it is a fundamental skill they must acquire to work with the software. Therefore, choosing a reliable online service and receiving valuable assistance from a highly experienced developer will be their best decision.
Let’s discover the ways to become a full-stack developer
In 2023 a full-stack developer is increasingly required by companies in the United States and abroad and will be sought-after for many years. But how to achieve it?
The first point you should be clear about is that being an expert in all areas and topics is unnecessary
There will probably be an area that most attracts you, and you will know more about it. That is, you will be an expert in that area, and the other aspects will be knowledge that will help you in your daily life without necessarily being an expert. This professional profile is known as a T-shaped or T-programmer.
So what should you learn to become a full-stack developer?
Version control
The essential requirement for any developer is to know at least one of the version control tools. Currently, the most demanded are Git and SVN.
Front-end programming, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript
Learning the basics can be fun and will undoubtedly pay off in your career. Learn HTML well, understand the notions of positioning and the nuances of CSS, and, of course, know the primary front-end JavaScript resources. Also, learn how responsive designs work and how they are made.
Usability Notions
Who has never seen a back-end developer who needed to put a message on the screen and did it through a javascript with an alert that went entirely out of the standard and threw down the whole usability of the application or website?
Knowing UX and knowing what can be done, and how the end user will see that new functionality is essential for any full-stack professional. This will help you make decisions with the user as your primary focus.
Back-end development
The variety of languages and options is wide. This is the most significant step for those coming after learning the front-end.
If you have never had contact with a back-end language, start with languages where the learning curve is more relaxed, such as PHP and Ruby.
Once you feel comfortable, you can move on to new languages and paradigms, such as Java and ASP.NET, and then go deeper.
Database
Yes, you will need to work with databases daily. And that means more than just making basic selects. Learning to perform complex joins and make effective queries that don’t unnecessarily require the database is also fundamental in everyday life. You can start by learning MySQL, Oracle, PostgreSQL, or any other database server you use in your current work or will use in the future.
This is a significant differential since more and more companies are adopting mobile applications. Knowing the operation and structure of mobile applications for leading platforms is also essential.
In most projects, mobile apps are integrated with a back-end, so this knowledge of both worlds can be a great differentiator for your career.
You can start by learning Android or iOS. Still, if you are more familiar with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, you can also learn Ionic or Cordova, which generate applications for the leading mobile platforms through HTML.
Infrastructure, cloud, and DevOps
If you come from the front-end world, it is essential to know the infrastructure. To know, for example, that with HTTP/2, you can have many more great features to make your pages much faster, among other essential things, and learn how to configure and make everything available to the end user.
For those coming from the back-end world, setting up an application server and preparing the ground for deployment is more than a common task in projects and is currently very much in the hands of developers.
Understand how different types of cloud services work, how to automate processes to set up environments, and lose the fear of messing with the command line, and you will indeed have many benefits in your career.
Business knowledge
Imagine that the company’s president comes up next to you and asks, “That functionality you’re doing, what results does it deliver for the company?”
Your answer could only remain on the technical side as “We are doing this functionality to know how to develop in Angular 2”, which probably wouldn’t make the CEO’s eyes shine. However, it is essential, too, of course.
On the other hand, if the answer were, “This functionality is essential to reduce the time the user waits for attention. The good thing is that after it is on air, we will be able to serve 20% more people, that is, many more customers satisfied with us “.
Always try to understand the impact of what you are doing on the business as a whole. Remember that your actions generate value for the company from the simplest to the most complex functionalities. Understanding what this value is is essential to justify your work.
You’ll cope with everything (a.k.a. don’t doubt yourself)
Remember that you can be an expert in some of these elements. Specialize in one of these points (if you haven’t already) and then start learning the other aspects. Some of the top full-stack developers started as experts where they already worked and then gradually learned new skills.
The critical point is to do it regularly by keeping a study routine!
The great advantage of being a full-stack developer has the ingenuity to participate in the different phases of the project, which can even become a crucial part of it, being the person who has special knowledge about the project, who knows from end to end how the pieces fit together and, of course, this can be an essential differentiator for your valuation as a professional.
Summary
Being a full-stack developer is a responsible and demanding profession. But it opens you with such opportunities that you can’t even imagine. If you aim to become a software development professional, be ready to go through thorns to get to the stars eventually. And remember to follow some valuable bits of advice from this article. We wish you good luck!
