Recently, I am bemused with many freshies out of school with claims of being a full stack and very long list of technical skills. The role of full stack may exaggerated and taken out of context. It seems there are no consideration to what is being taught and what is being practiced. It is pretty easy for an experienced person to comprehend what your full stack really means. Before you start calling yourself a full stack, you can try a simple checklist on yourself.
- Have you implement and deploy at least 5 projects end to end? Projects, not school homework.
- Are you comfortable in configuring and setting up server, database and web framework?
- Are you adaptable in all forms of coding style and syntax?
- Can you evaluate and provide solutions to real business problems?
- Do you have moderate domain knowledge for at least one industry?
In short, the skillset of full stack is similar to techno-functional role. It is not possible to acquire full stack capabilities straight out of school. In the real world, the “homework” is much unpredictable and only life practice can teach you the skills you need to be a full stack.
Danny Kwok 