What Is a Full-Stack Engineer?
Full-stack engineers are the renaissance people of software engineering. They do it all, from working with clients to understand their vision of software, to developing on the back end, to testing and releasing the software. So if you’re interested in being a software engineer who works on a broad spectrum of tasks and types of work, becoming a full-stack engineer might be right for you.
So what is a full-stack engineer, what do they do, and how do you become one?
Definition of Full-Stack Engineer
A type of software engineer who works on both the front and back ends of software is called a full-stack engineer. This means they’re concerned with both what users see (the front end) and the parts of the software that make that user-side view possible (the back end).
“Full-stack developers are crucial players in building amazing software applications,” says Dario Zadro, owner and web developer of Zadro Web and full-stack developer with over 20 years of experience. “They have expertise in a wide range of technologies and can work on the design and functionality of a website or app.”
About a third of respondents to Stack Overflow's 2023 Developer Study identified themselves as full-stack engineers, the most popular position in the study, followed by back-end engineers (about 18%) and front-end engineers (about 6%). Before the internet was invented, every software engineer was full-stack, according to Tech Crunch. However, as technology developed and became more complex, there was a need for more specialization — and more software engineers began to narrow in on specific parts of the software development process.
Full-Stack Engineer vs. Software Engineer
Full-stack engineering is a subset of software engineering. This means that all full-stack engineers are software engineers, but not all software engineers are full-stack engineers.
The main difference between a full-stack engineer versus a software engineer is what part of the software they work on. A full-stack engineer works on multiple parts of the software, while software engineers might work on just one.
“I’ve heard this often described as breadth vs. depth of skills,” Kathy Zhou, CTO and technical co-founder of Queenly, a search engine for formalwear, says. “Domain-specific engineers have the depth of knowledge to understand a specific programming language or framework at a more granular level of architectural or field-specific knowledge. A full-stack engineer is often described as a ‘generalist’ and can dive into newer tech stacks, but might not have the years and years of experience working deep in one specific tech stack.”
A full-stack engineer is focused on the entire software development process and is skilled across different software parts. However, this means they’re not often a master of one part of the software, like a front-end engineer is with the user side or a security engineer is with the software’s cybersecurity solutions.
>>MORE: Types of Software Engineers (and How to Know Which One’s Right for You)
Full-Stack Engineer vs. Full-Stack Developer
What’s the difference between a full-stack engineer and a full-stack developer? Sometimes, there’s no difference at all. Many people in the tech world use these terms interchangeably; even people within the same company might use the different terms to mean the same thing.
>>FURTHER: Developer versus Software Engineer: What’s the Difference?
Both front-end and back-end development are performed by full-stack engineers and developers. When there is a distinction, full-stack engineers may focus more on the engineering side of the software, specifically the architectural and infrastructure aspects of web development. Full-stack developers may focus on skills beyond coding, like UX design, project management, and system administration.
If you’re unsure if a specific role is using the terms interchangeably or specifically, take a look at the job responsibilities and skills to understand if the role focuses more on engineering or general web development skills.
What Does a Full-Stack Engineer Do?
A full-stack engineer’s job is to work on both the front and back ends of software and how those parts communicate. Some of their everyday tasks might include:
Collaborating internally with both front-end and back-end engineers to improve efficiency and identify roadblocks
Collaborating externally with the product or design team
Writing tests for the code to ensure it’s working as intended
Finding and fixing bugs in the code
Implementing new software features
Designing software architecture for the back end
Building front-end applications to align with client specifications
Writing documentation of software development process
Day in the Life of a Full-Stack Engineer
Now that you know some of the common tasks full-stack engineers work on, what’s it like to actually be a full-stack engineer? Here are three different days in the life.
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