Introduction
The industry is in constant need of new developers, as the integration of the internet permeates further into our everyday lives. A lot of our daily lives are invested in the internet, be it for our entertainment, managing our financials, or even as a full-time job. There is always consistent, ever-growing demand for full-stack developers, and companies are offering amazing benefits to attract them over. Full-stack developers are often given lucrative pay scales and advancement and have the mobility to work in almost any facet of development.
If you’re looking to get into becoming a full stack developer, it can seem intimidating to pick up and break into the industry. In this guide, we will go over all the steps that you need to take to become a full-stack developer.
What Is The Role Of A Full-Stack Developer?
A full-stack developer is someone competent and knowledgeable about almost all aspects of development. Unlike most developers who specialize in either front-end or back-end engineering, full-stack developers are required to understand both, combined with web architecture experience. They are required to be able to work on the ‘full-stack’ of software.
From gathering project prerequisites from different parties, designing and developing databases and servers, to even managing cross-platform optimization. Often considered invaluable additions to any team, the quality of a full stack developer often is indicative of the quality of the project.
An Industry View
The industry is filled with capable and experienced front-end and back-end developers, but as demand for more holistic approaches to projects by companies increases, so has the demand for full-stack developers.
Companies and organizations, increasingly, want team members that can handle all facets of development in a bid to save them money and time. This allows full-stack developers to have a highly mobile and diverse role within teams, giving them greater exposure and opportunity.
Full-stack developers can play many different roles, from senior software engineers to even principal software developers, along with enjoying high salaries. Hence, it is much easier for a full-stack developer to move into senior positions or opt for a career switch. For example, whilst a senior software developer develops information systems and studies operations, a principal software developer troubleshoots, diagnoses, and tests systems to solve problems. The former takes a salary of $132,158 whilst the latter earns around $157,688.
Becoming A Full-Stack Developer
First, you need to understand where you are in your developer career and measure your currently held experience. Make a list of all the qualifications and experiences you have within the industry, as it will help you arrange a feasible roadmap to becoming a full-stack developer.
If you’re already in the industry, then you would have likely accumulated some amount of hands-on experience as well as qualifications. It will be particularly beneficial if you have experience working as a front-end or back-end developer, especially if you have done both.
If you’re just starting within the industry or are planning to break into the industry, there will be a significant amount of hurdles that you have to overcome to become a full-stack developer. Identify how much knowledge you currently have about developing, as well as if you have had any projects (be it side projects, as a hobby, or for work) that have given you a chance to work on different developing languages and services.
Choose Your Destination
There are several ways that a full stack developer works, each offering very different work environments and responsibilities. From being a freelance developer, or a consultant, or as a developer in a company, or even to developing applications by yourself, there are many options to pick from.
Choosing which role you want to eventually take on will dictate what tools you should familiarise yourself with most, though you should strive to be familiar with as much of them as possible. Understanding how to use Text editors, browsers and terminals are essential for anyone aspiring to be a developer. Terminal, in particular, is important for streamlining the execution of tasks and greatly increases your efficiency as a developer.
As well as these, it is also important to understand how to use front-end and back-end developer tools. Bootstrap — a web development framework, and Foundation — a CSS framework to create interactive user interfaces, are some of the front-end applications you should know and understand well. Other tools like Angular.js, Python, and Elixir are also important for you to be able to competently utilize.
For back-end tools, Django, Ember, js, React, D3.js and Lodash are applications that help streamline work processes and you should understand how to utilize them. ReactJS development in particular is popular right now.
Hone Your Deployment Processes
Knowing how to use your tools to deploy front-end projects and eventually deploy them on a live server is also important. To ensure that you do not incur any asset losses during deployment, ensure that you have taken all the steps required.
Deploying requires the following steps: domain registration to hosting the website and configuring DNS records, testing and registering emails, backing up the redundant site, and then eventually going live.
Pick The Right Learning Program For You
When picking learning courses, make sure that they can fit with your current employment schedule and their flexibility in providing time to take them. There are intensive, full-time programs offered for those who can take them, as well as many part-time programs.
Also, consider designing and developing your projects so that you can practice the knowledge that you learn. Not only is this a great way to better retain the information in your head, but it can also even help in showing your skills credibility to employers.
Networking
In line with going for these courses (particularly in-person ones!), you will also be able to rub shoulders with other aspiring developers, or even experienced full-stack developers. Not only will it be good for your professional life, but it can also be used as a forum to collaborate and share ideas and new work processes.
The best part of being a developer is being able to crowdsource solutions to problems and collaborate with others on a long-term goal.
Conclusion
After understanding what the roles and qualifications are of a full stack developer, you can start to better chart out your journey to eventually becoming one. Pick the right options that fit not only the industry that you’re working in but also what you are passionate about. The road to becoming a full-stack developer can be very long, and you will need that self-motivation to keep going.
