How Do You ‘Stack’ Up in Front-to-Back End Development?

Every application depends first and foremost on a goal, a reason for being. In other words, there’s a problem to solve, an unmet need to fulfill. Someone in an organization says, ‘Let’s develop an application to solve this problem or fill this need.’

What happens next depends on the organization and its capabilities. To get from idea to finished application is a result of the development process. And there are as many different ways to tackle a problem as there are developers.

It begs the question: What’s the best way to define and organize this process? The answer differs from team-to-team, but one of the recurring choices they make is whether or not to hire full stack developers.

What do full stack developers do?

Conceptually, every application is a whole. There can be no back-end of an application without a front-end and vice versa. However, the distinctions between front-and-back end are useful during the development process. They segment different aspects of the process, often according to the programming skills necessary to do the work.

Full-stack developers are comfortable working on any segment of the process. From the front-end design that end users experience, to back-end design and architecture of the app itself, to operations and database integration and more.

Why become a full stack developer?

One of the distinguishing factors between full stack developers and other developers is their familiarity and comfort with a variety of programming languages.

Full stack developers develop proficiency with languages that are used for different segments of the process, including HTML, CSS and JavaScript for front-end development and Ruby, Python for back-end development, as well as others such as AngularJS, SQL and ASP.net.

There’s a healthy debate over which is better: To master one or two languages in depth or to pursue many languages as a full stack developer. The choice doesn’t have to be that stark. It’s possible to develop strengths in several languages over time.

And there are good reasons that developers would want to master some languages and be relatively skilled at others. One is that even if a developer concentrates primarily on one aspect of development, it pays to understand how and why the rest of the development process works.

Experience with many aspects of the process is a step toward mastery over one or the other. Why? Because a good developer isn’t programming merely to accomplish their goal. They’re programming in a way that will sync seamlessly with their counterparts’ work. A holistic understanding of development and its languages makes for better developers.

Revature can get you started

Revature can help launch your career as a full stack developer by providing everything you need: training, connections with top companies, and a clear path to success. If you’re interested in programming and software development, Revature will teach you in-demand technologies that today’s Fortune 500 companies are using.

Unlike organizations that charge you fees to learn coding and programming skills, Revature provides this training as an employee benefit to new hires through an intensive and customized 10-to-14-week program, where they learn and practice the technologies required for entry-level jobs in software development.

By the end of the training, you’ll have a feel for the real-world, enterprise-level environment in which software developers work. On top of that, you’ll have a job in a field you can grow and be successful.