5 Reasons companies want to hire Full Stack Web Developers
Haven’t you seen a lot of people adding ‘Full Stack Developer @ xxx’ as their titles on LinkedIn? Well, it isn’t just another casual trend like the Dalgona, it’s a trend that even LinkedIn has acknowledged. According to this report by them, the profile of a full stack developer is one of the fastest growing jobs in the Indian talent market. But why is that? Why are employers ready to fight to get that shiny full stack developer on board?
I can think of 5 reasons full stack developers are slowly and steadily becoming the apples of employers’ eyes:
1. Cost
It’s business. Ain’t nobody got the guts to lose money here! That’s how your employers think. They have way too many things to spend their money on, and they’ll do their best to find avenues where they can save a few greenbacks. When you are a full stack developer, you are getting their work done in a cheaper manner. Just imagine, if you hadn’t landed like an angel for them, they would have hired a separate frontend developer, a backend developer and a database engineer. That means hefty salaries and benefits for 3 different people. Versus, shilling out more than average salary for a single super awesome you! You are monetarily a more efficient option to getting their work done. They owe you one.
2. Time to market
Humans are the most difficult species to work with on this planet. Don’t believe me? Try some cross-team work for once. Let’s say you were a backend engineer, and you are rolling out a feature in your application in 2 months. For the feature to work end to end, you need to work closely with the database team. This would mean that for the work to be complete, both the teams need to be in sync. That’s a challenge. The database team might say they have a higher priority database maintenance work lined up for the next 2 months and they cannot let go of that. What happens then? Your feature gets shelved. God knows till when. This is exactly when full stack developers come in like a God send for the company.
All these companies want to ship their products and features to their customers as soon as possible. If the company has full stack developers on its team, it means that it has people who have the skills to make the entire application work form end to end. This would mean that it doesn’t have to wait for a nod from some other team to go ahead with their plans. They need not put time and efforts in trying to sync up different teams. Their full stack team is independent and can get the work done and ship it as and when it likes it. The customers can get their enhancements faster. Happy customers, happy company, happy you.
3. Simplicity in communication
Let’s get back to our example of the database team. Let’s say the management finally figured out a timeline that would work for both the teams. The feature is finally rolling out today in a few hours. Your team knows it, your boss knows it, but the poor database team – their manager forgot to forward them the email that had this communication. Because they are completely unaware of the deployment today, they didn’t even create those necessary tables that are required for your feature to run! All you can do now is pray.
Let’s bring our heroes back in for a while. If your team had full stack developers, just imagine the ease your manager would’ve had in sending out this communication regarding the roll out. He wouldn’t have to remember to send it to 10 other teams because yours would be the only team that would have an action item for the roll out. Whenever a message is sent through several layers, there are always chances of the message getting distorted or even dropped altogether. Full stack developers bring ease to this process as it’s just one team that does it all. No need to relay information anywhere else.
4. More people to rely on
Let’s say the backend expert on your team went on a two-week vacation to the Himalayas. In his absence, unfortunately, the piece of code he had written to place orders in your application, broke. The customer is not able to place orders anymore. He is angry. Your boss gets to know this. He tries to call the backend expert but apparently there’s no cell network in the Himalayas. Now your boss is pulling his hair and freaking out. But then comes the knight in shining armor – the full stack developer on his team.
Since full stack developers know applications from end to end, they can be relied on in case of emergencies as well. If someone else is missing, our hero would be able to save the day. In this case, the knowledge doesn’t remain restricted to one person, it is widespread, making the team more reliable. You still have some doubts why companies run after full stack people?
5. Problem solvers
Well, this one is a no brainer. Sometimes we need people who can look at things from a bird’s eye view. You will have a generalized view of the entire application. You will know the ins and outs of how everything works. Since you have an experience of how every piece in your application works, you would be in a better position to come up with ideas to solve complex problems. Your thinking would be wider. You won’t limit yourself to just your area of expertise. If you have played with different things, it gives you a muscle to become more innovative. And isn’t this the most clichéd thing you’ve heard companies say to their employees – “We want you to think out of the box!”
If you are in two minds regarding steering your career towards the full stack road, take this post as a sign. Employers are hungry for full stack developers because they need them. They make their business easy, simple. But if you’re wondering, ‘all this is how employers would profit, what’s in it for me?”, don’t forget to check out this (link to next post) post which will tell you what you have to gain from all this. Till then, get into full gear to move up the full stack road!
Author: Simmipreet Kaur