Let’s say all you know today is that you want to become a software engineer. Which specialization – which one would earn you money? Which one would get you excited? Which one is your strong suit? You don’t have enough information to figure that out yet. Confused and uncertain, you pick the path of full stack web development because your senior gave you this advice. Now let’s bring out our crystal ball and look into your future – In the next 2 years or so, you will learn how things work on the front end, the back end, the database, the infrastructure. After 2 years of going through all these areas, you notice that database gives you nightmares. You would sell your kidney but not work on infrastructure. Back end makes you fall asleep faster than your school textbooks. But frontend – that’s something for you! Front end makes you feel excited, or it is simply the strongest skill in your full stack kit. At this point, you can take a decision to start specializing in front end technologies, after having tested all the waters – Bless the senior who gave you the advice.

The crystal ball just showed you that you were able to make a sound decision in your career after you decided to check out all that was available to you. You first generalized, then specialized.

So, the statement that “you need to spread across the entire stack” is incomplete. That’s just step 1. Step 2 is to use your full stack opportunity to figure out what your strengths and weaknesses are. Step 3 is to pick up your strength and double down on it.

You will fall into the trap of the ‘jack of all trades, master of none’ if you view the full stack opportunity as the “last” thing that needs to be done to boost your career. It in fact is the “first” thing that can propel your career. Look at full stack as a journey, and not a destination. A journey where you get a chance to explore everything under the sun. Once you’ve explored enough, you will get a fair idea of what you want to do next. This would bring you in a better position for specializing in one trade. And that’s not the only perk you get. Don’t forget how far you’ve already come with your full stack skills – you know how applications work end to end now. The idea is to leverage your full stack skills and become more ‘T-shaped’ – you are fairly good at understanding how the entire application works, but you are an expert in this one area, the strength you decided to double down on. Just imagine how empowering it can be if you get this opportunity at the beginning of your career!