Why Full Stack Developers are the
Most Valuable Asset for Any Startup
By Satyam Chaturvedi
The Information Technology is shaping the world like no one has ever envisioned. Last decade has seen such a drastic change, which was not seen in the entire human history. The Internet, Web apps and innovative Software development approach have changed the way we used to communicate, interact, and operate. The web development domain is evolving with each passing day and becoming a revenue generator for Technology firms across the world. Every organization either an Enterprise or a buddying Startup, all are trying their best to onboard this Technology bandwagon to make their mark in tech world.
To make an exceptional software product and organization must have a team of expert developers, who can work on a conceived idea and transform into a real-world product. Couple of decades back, we used to have linear software development process, where few programmers could have developed a software product from start to finish, as there were not many layers between software and hardware. By mid 2000s, when Web 2.0 kicked in, the software development process becomes more complex. The technologies stacks become more layered. We have seen terms like “front-end developers” and “back-end developers”, which were a specific kind of specialized skill set. In 2010’s another buzzword started making noise, and that was “full-stack developers”. It started gaining the traction among Tech Czars and Developers, who wants to look beyond front-end or back-end developers.
At the same time, we have seen a mercurial rise of startups that are small or medium level of organizations, which present a new idea and present it as a technology solution in the market. As these organizations are small and have budgetary constraints and several other aspects to consider staying afloat, they have started looking for the developers, who can manage multiple aspects of software development, and that’s exactly where full stack developers come as a big boon for Startups.
Since last couple of years, there has been a huge demand to hire full stack developers, especially in the Startup ecosystem. It is true that gaining an advantage on specific skill set and being a specialist in a specific domain is certainly a big ask. However, the pace with which the technology is evolving and transforming the software development landscape, most of the Tech organizations and startups are looking for the talents, who can cater their requirements and manage both frontend and backend aspect of a software solution.
What is Full Stack Developer?
Full stack developers are highly skilled software programmers who possess high degree of expertise in both frontend and backend aspects of web and application development. Such programmers duly understand multiple programming languages, frameworks, evolving technologies, and various kinds of tools that can help them to develop a software solution from scratch and transform any idea into a minimum viable with rapid pace.
Currently we have almost 20 >types of developers in the market, however the most sought after ones are Full stack developers, and their demand has been increasing like wildfire. With the massive increase in the number of Startups around the world, we are witnessing a massive increase in the demand for full stack developers in last 5 years. Startups are hiring the full stack developer, as they need someone who can help them develop an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) for their business ideas, without hiring huge team and investing a lot in training and development of resources. In this article, we would like to explain different aspects of hiring a Full stack developer, and how they have become an asset for Startups.
What traits does a Full Stack Developer have?
Though we know that a full stack developer should be well versed with both Frontend and Backend technologies, but there are few traits, which are expected to be in every full stack developer.
- Be able to develop SPA (single page applications) and handle media queries as well.
- Be able to understand new web development frameworks like Node JS and Django.
- Should have extensive work experience of MongoDB and MySQL.
- Should be well versed with the concepts of hybrid mobile application development.
- Should be flexible enough to make a switch from one domain to another, while delivering the releases with utmost product quality.
When a Startup needs a Full Stack Developer?
As we discussed above, a full-stack developer can make a lot of difference for a startup, due to an additional capability and knowledge of various technology stacks. Even after that, if anyone has any sort of confusion, then we have given the following distinct scenarios, where Startup needs a Full stack developer to fulfill their requirements.
- When a Startup requires a knowledgeable Project manager, who can understand the requirements of Client and propose a suitable solution to cater their expectations.
- When Startups want to develop an MVP quickly, so that it can launch that into the market to get product feedback, which can help them secure more funding.
- When Startups have shoestring budgets and manage the projects with limited number of resources.
Why Startups Prefer full-stack development?
Startup and other small and medium level of organizations operate with certain constraints, like fund crunch and lack of resources. Hence, to remain afloat and competitive, their primary objective is to keep expenditure in check and fulfill their requirement with the minimum number of resources.
Fortunately, both the objectives could be fulfilled by simply hiring a seasoned full stack developer. Full stack developers address these budget and resource availability woes of Startups. They can easily handle frontend and backend aspects; at the same time, they can build the programming interfaces and incorporate additional features into an existing solution. This indeed brings down the overall cost of software development to a great extent.
Startups and SME’s prefer to hire full-stack developers for following reasons:
- They can easily handle every aspect of web development requirement
- They can effervescently build the web application and traditional software programs.
- They can handle the design aspect and user interface (UI/UX) associated with frontend.
- They can easily coordinate with in-house teams, external vendors, and Client as well.
- They can contribute more towards troubleshooting various software development issues, as they have more exposure of different technologies and tools.
- They can easily determine the suitable and effective testing techniques for web applications and mobile applications.
Full stack developers are known for their proficiency in all current technologies, frameworks. They can enable a Startup to offer better solution to their clients. Rather than focusing on a specific language or framework, Full-stack developers are equipped with the knowledge and experience with plethora of tools and technologies like HTML, CSS, JavaScript, C#, MySQL, Node JS, MongoDB, Angular JS, PHP, Apache. That is the reason why Startups consider full stack developers as their most valuable development resources.
Conclusion
Full-stack development has come as a big boon for startup and medium sized businesses to avail efficientand effective software development solutions at a reasonable cost, while making no compromise whatsoever on product quality and innovation. This makes them compete at global level and give them the necessary ability to act as a Catalyst for Change.
The demand for Full-stack developers is skyrocketing because they are valuable asset to any organization. Their extensive knowledge and experience with wide-ranging technologies and frameworks make them highly flexible, agile, and adaptable. These certainly are essential skills for any software developer, who wants to develop high quality software products both in the startups and scaled Enterprises.
Author Bio
Satyam Chaturvedi is a Digital Marketing Strategist at Arka Softwares, one of the leading full-stack development company. He has more than 4 years of experience in Digital Marketing and loves to read and write about AI, Machine Learning, DevOps, and much more about emerging technologies. In his spare time, he enjoys watching sci-fi movies and listening to music.