Full-stack is a term born of a growing need to produce unified cross-platform solutions while meeting accelerated release cycles. It simply means a developer who is competent at developing both front-end and server-side software. Even though full-stack programming has been around for a while, it really just started trending in software development in the last 10 years.
According to the job website Indeed, the demand for full-stack developers increased by more than 200% between 2015 and 2018, with even greater increases in recent years. As a result, full-stack developer was among the top three in-demand positions in 2019.
In the last couple of years, full-stack programming has continued to grow in popularity. This is because businesses need to develop and deploy new projects at an increasing pace. New market demands amid the COVID-19 crisis and its aftermath have only sped up that cycle.
Given the hype, business leaders and IT decision-makers are questioning why they need to focus on hiring full-stack programmers. Moreover many want to know what tasks they should hire full-stack developers for.
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Why is full-stack programming gaining popularity?
One reason full-stack developers are in high demand is digital transformation. Businesses are adopting new technologies in order to meet changing market demands. Customers expect to see multi-functional software products as part of their tech stack, They also demand quicker delivery and frequent updates. As a result, modern applications are getting more complex. What used to be simple applications now leverage multiple components. These include application programming interfaces (APIs like ip locators), third-party services, and legacy code.
This new complexity makes it more and more difficult for IT teams to support these applications. It takes more time to identify and fix issues and errors. In addition, it is more expensive — businesses often need to hire multiple specialized developers to keep up. In these circumstances, hiring full-stack developers with general expertise across several fields and technologies just makes sense.
What are the duties of a full-stack developer?
A full-stack developer has the knowledge and experience to use all the technologies your company uses on a given project. The specific expertise necessary varies according to your project requirements themselves. Let’s look at some of the most common responsibilities of full-stack developers employed by organizations across industries.
Front-end programming
Front-end programming and optimization of legacy code is often considered the primary responsibility of a full-stack programmer. Managing the front end typically requires a developer to know JavaScript, HTML, and CSS.
Back-end development
Back-end programming is the second major part of a full-stack programmer’s duties. Depending on the company and project, in order to contribute to the back-end development, a programmer needs to know the primary language used to power the back-end. Some of the most popular back-end languages are Java, Python, C#, and C++ as well as Node.js.
Database management
Databases are the third integral part of any software product. Managing them is the final portion of the full-stack skillset. MySQL and MongoDB are the two main technologies a full-stack developer needs to know.
API integration and management
Especially today, the importance of integrating APIs in your services is rapidly growing. This is because APIs allow organizations to utilize innovative technologies and third-party data sources. They are also are easy to implement and inexpensive to maintain. This is why expertise in API integration and management is also increasingly important for a full-stack developer to have.
Development operations (DevOps)
A full-stack dev also needs to possess general knowledge of software development operations and infrastructures in order to be able to identify issues and fix problems.
System security management
As an additional skill, full-stack programmers need to have at least basic knowledge of software security. This allows them to ensure their code meets security requirements.
Hardware systems knowledge
To prevent potential hardware-related issues, an experienced full-stack developer should also have experience with the hardware used in development operations as well by the end-user.
What are the benefits of full-stack programming?
By now, you can probably see how choosing full-stack development can be beneficial for a business, and why it is getting more popular.
Here are some specific advantages that organizations can expect to get from prioritizing full-stack programming.
New business benefits from API integration and optimization
As we mentioned earlier, API integration is one of the core technologies allowing modern-day companies to reap the benefits of the latest tech innovations, such as AI, Big Data, as well as machine learning and automation. Hiring experienced full-stack developers allows you to maximize the benefits of these technologies. It also allows you to optimize the way they interact with your other software layers.
Of course, getting maximum business benefits from APIs involves more than hiring full-stack programmers. Choosing the APIs you want to use in your project is one of them.
That is where apilayer comes into it. apilayer is an unparalleled suite of productivity-boosting web APIs and cloud-based microservice applications for developers and companies of any size. The apilayer product suite includes a number of powerful APIs for online audience control, user verification, access to high-quality data tools and real-time content conversion.
Ipstack, for example, is a scalable IP address geolocation and reverse IP lookup REST API. It helps organizations use IP intelligence data to take control of their online audiences, enhance their user experience and efficiently prevent fraud.
Code optimization and development standardization
Full-stack developers also apply their knowledge of multiple programming languages across different software layers to optimize the code base in addition to implementing coding standards. Adhering to and enforcing standards organizes a project’s code base and makes it easier for future programmers to work with.
Extensive and flexible in-house development capabilities
Another benefit of having developers skilled in several programming languages and technologies is that they are much more flexible you can deploy them to areas where your business need is greatest.
Better design and UX of your products
Full-stack developers tend to deliver better outcomes when it comes to the design, user interface and overall user experience of the product. This makes sense given they know the specifics of both front-end and back-end development and can build more coherent software products.
Higher cost-efficiency
And, last but not least, full-stack programming allows companies to achieve higher levels of cost-efficiency. They can achieve this by leveraging the universal knowledge of full-stack developers, who are capable of working on a product throughout all the stages of the development process, from initial design to final release and further maintenance.
If you are interested in learning more about hiring a full-stack developer and leveraging the power of API’s to transform your business model, visit apilayer today!
