When you look at the architecture of any web app, two main areas can be easily distinguished: front-end and back-end. To put it simply, front-end is everything that the user sees on your website, be it the copy, the images, or the widgets you want them to use. On the other hand, the back-end is not clearly visible to a customer, but it still matters for the user experience. Back-end covers all the things related to databases and other server-side operations so your web app actually runs and users can exchange data with you.
Because of this division, dev teams are often divided into two separate groups: the front-end developers and the back-end developers.
So, after we have already answered the what is back-end and what is front-end questions, the other one arises: what is full stack developer?
Who is a full stack developer?
The answer is simple: full stack developer is someone who is experienced in both the front-end and the back-end development. They might not be as expert in these areas as developers who dedicate their time only to front-end or back-end, but they are still able to handle most of the problems you might have with either user or server-side of the web app.
So when you might want to hire a full stack developer?
- When you are just starting your company (meaning you need to cut costs) and want someone to start working on both the front-end and back-end of your web app. Usually, companies hire full stack developers until they are financially comfortable with running two separate dev teams.
- When you already have an established company with separate back-end and front-end developers, but still need a support dev to tackle the current issues in both areas of the web app development.
- When you need a team lead or manager for the broader dev team.
- When you have only a simple product (or a subproduct to your main one) in mind. Small apps or websites can usually be built and maintained by a single person with more basic knowledge.
What does a full stack developer do in a project?
When you hire a full stack developer for your new startup, their job will be, quite literally, to take care of everything related to web app development. This includes recommending technology for the project, writing the code from scratch, setting up the servers and databases, launching the product, maintaining it, etc.
Some startups, however, decide to hire a software house/app development company to create the initial version of the product and then hire full stack developer to work on what’s already been created. If this is the case, full stack developers have to familiarize themselves with the web app and keep maintaining both its back-end and front-end, which includes taking care of the current issues and adding functionalities requested by CEO/product owner/other teams.
If there are at least two full stack developers in a team, often one of them finally focuses more on the back-end, while the other drifts away to front-end. It doesn’t necessarily mean they abandon their full stack developer duties, though — they still can jump into the other area of development when it’s needed.
What skills are required for a full stack developer?
When you want to hire full stack developer, you should look for the following hard, technical skills:
- Experience in both back-end and front-end
Even if your candidate has mentioned being a full stack web developer, ask them explicitly what they did for each company they worked for. Professional experience in working with both back-end and front-end is crucial when hiring full stack developers.
- Knowledge of multiple programming languages
Popular choice for front-end: JavaScript (+ HTML and CSS).
Popular choices for back-end: Ruby, Python, PHP.
Your full stack web developer should also have experience in working with the commonly used frameworks and libraries for these languages (e.g. Ruby on Rails, React, Angular).
- Basic testing
If you are just launching your startup and hiring full stack developers, you probably don’t have enough money to start a QA/testing team right away. That’s why your developers should be able to take care of basic testing when necessary.
- Knowledge of server-side and database technologies
For database management, knowledge of MySQL, MongoDB, and/or Oracle is recommended.
For servers, Apache and Nginx are popular solutions.
- Being aware of design best practices
Full stack web developers in early-stage startups pretty much play the role of designers as well. This means they need to understand the basics of good design and well-thought UX.
What soft skills should you look for when you hire a full stack developer?
Being a full stack web developer requires the dev to be able to both work independently as well as cooperate well with the team. When you want to hire a full stack developer for a new startup, there will obviously be a lot of different responsibilities to take care of — not only coding itself, but also planning and leading the project. In the end, however, the developer will need to be also able to work within a team and, possibly, coordinate what others do.
Taking all this into consideration, some of the soft skills a good full stack web developer should have are:
- Creativity
To be able to make your product unique.
- Expert time management
To balance responsibilities when it comes to working on both back-end and front-end of the web app.
- Leadership skills
To run and coordinate the team well when it finally grows enough.
- Researcher attitude
To follow all the trends in web development and be able to distinguish what’s useful from what’s simply overhyped.
Top full stack web developer interview questions
When you finally carefully review the resume and portfolio of your candidates (look for devs with experience in a similar industry and product as yours), the interview time comes. Interviewing a full stack developer is a bit more difficult than hiring a more specialized dev (e.g. strictly a front-end/back-end dev), especially if you are just starting your business.
If it’s the developer’s job to recommend the technology to use and to lead the product in the beginning, doing a typical technical interview may not be that useful as there would be simply too many technologies to talk about. Nevertheless, it would be still useful to have an experienced developer or IT Project Manager to assist you during the interview.
Some questions you might consider asking your full stack web developer candidate are:
- What technology would you recommend using for our project? (both for back-end and front-end)
- You find that your colleague’s code could be better. How do you react? What do you do?
- What should a developer consider in terms of SEO when developing a web app?
- Do you have experience with agile project management? Have you worked with Scrum/Kanban/DevOps implemented?
- What’s some big mistake that you have done while coding? How did you get it fixed?
- Do you like to discuss with other developers? What online communities do you visit? Do you attend conferences or meetups for devs? Have you ever attended one as a speaker? Do you run a blog or share your opinion on web development somewhere?
- How do you make sure you meet your deadlines and remember about your current responsibilities?
- What’s your preferred way of communicating with other teams at the company?
- Do you prefer working in a startup or corporate environment? Why?
- What is the favorite project you have worked on so far? Why is it your favorite?
Boost your chances of market success
Even if you hire a full stack developer to take care of both front-end and back-end development, you will still have other, less technical issues that need to be overcome. Your product will need to have a great look and feel to attract new customers, meaning you need to have an experienced designer in the team. You might also want to try to better understand your target group with the power of data — you will need to have data scientists on board for that. And, finally, someone will need to manage all of this, such as an IT-experienced project manager.
To have these and other experts hired in the most efficient way, contact us at Ideamotive. We run a unique network of industry’s top leaders and talents ready to help the next products in their path to success. Reach out to us today to learn more.
