In recent years, startups hires team of the full stack developers because they need to work with limited resources. Startups get the initial boost if the team can work on frontend and backend both for a web application or a product development.
As a startup you can’t afford to hire a person for only one skill, you need a people who solves the multiple tasks. Rather hire for HTML developer only why not to hire a person who can work with HTML/CSS, Angularjs development and able to connect with database as well. For enterprise companies like Twitter, Facebook, Google they look for independent front end developer-angularjs consultant, UX team, server side team, database team, etc. So they often hire the specialist who has expertise in one specific skill.
In startups “Jack of all trades, master of none” popular idioms become “Jack of all trades and master at one” because when startups grow, eventually people specialize, person who was spending his time for PSD design, developing the Angularjs code, sometimes working with API, will eventually become specialize at least in one area i.e Professional Angularjs Developer
Over half of those surveyed (52.38 percent) named JavaScript as their primary coding language, while Java and Python came in second and third, respectively- Adam
Source: State of Software Development Report (2017)
“Not surprisingly, 68.50% of startups consider work experience as one of the most important hiring criteria, following cultural fit (59.84%) and test project (31.5%) and side projects (30.71%). – State of Software Development Report (2017)“
Here’s a various skill or functional areas on a full-stack web engineering team:
1.UX Designer
- UX designers are responsible for the user satisfaction with web application or product by providing the usability, accessibility and joy of interaction with a web application.
- They often start with requirement gathering from stakeholder of web application and maps the user journey, find the user’s persona and information architecture.
- Uses the Axure, Invision or Balsamiq to design the wireframe and prototype. They can design the complete clickable prototype of the web application before starting the project to ensure the user experience on each page of the web application or product.
2.Visual Designer
They are master of photoshop, illustrator, and sketch and delivers the PSD or slices assets, you can review his portfolio over Dribbble and Behance – the designer’s community.
3.Frontend Developer
The front developer uses the Slices PSD and converts it into the HTML+CSS with jquery/media query to make it browser and mobile responsive. Front end developer makes the web application alive in the browser, now they often use the front-end framework like Angularjs/Vue.js/react js. Job title includes “Front end developer”, “Software engineer”, UI engineer”
4.Backend Developer
- Writes server-side code like PHP, and node.js, as well as web frameworks like Express, Laravel, CodeIgniter.
- The Entry level backend developer develops the dynamic web pages and interaction using database like (MySQL/MongoDB)
- Expert level backend developer uses the multiple databases to store the application data as required. They understand the performance, scalability of data and high-level architecture for future expansion works with the database like MySQL, MongoDB, Redis, Neo4j, and PostgreSQL etc.
Job Title includes: “backend engineer”,” software engineer”
Cloud hosting engineer
Nowadays system admin roles drastically changed towards the cloud hosting specialist due to a popularity of the key player like AWS, Google cloud and digital oceans for server less architecture. As per the new trend expert level Full stack developer adopting this cloud hosting skill as well.
What would makes you a full-stack developer and best fit for the startup?
You need to be master of two things Skill and attitude:
Regarding skills, you need enough knowledge and talent to quickly adopt the new platform, framework or programming language to solve the variety of problem for any type of web application.
Regarding attitude, you have to face and overcome any challenge which can deliver the great software to customer or end users. You don’t have to stick on the specific job role in a startup you need to deal with multiple things. For example, any startups may require best combination like below:
- A designer who can design digital assets and PSD with a good eye on UX to work on the user journey, design of wireframe and prototype, user stories.
- Front end developer who can convert digital assets to HTML/CSS and can make it live for the browser using the JavaScript like Angular.js/Vue.js/React.js etc. They don’t need to develop the backend but should have the knowledge to interaction with backend using REST API or similar interface for an application.
- Full stack developer or backend developer who will be master of front-end javascript writing and backend code using node.js, PHP or python etc. They are also a master of building the architecture for the cloud-based hosting and CI/CD process integration with AWS or digital ocean. Well aware of the new cloud technology i.e AWS Lambda, Load balancing using elastic, Amazon EC2 etc.
The conclusion is, I would like to suggest other important criteria for evaluating the candidates beyond their skills of a technological stack. They should consider based on cultural fit, ability to ‘get shit done’, problem-solving skill, clear communication, so focus on 10x teams, not on hiring 10x developers