Comment by Philip-J-Fry
5 years ago
I see where you're coming from, I do all that too. But it's the "jack of all trades" thing. You "know" all that, but do you actually __know__ all that.
I can develop a nice relational database design, write the SQL stored procedures to manipulate it, write a backend API and write the front end SPA for it. I don't think I'm an expert in any of those things though, and if I am then it's more focused on the backend API stuff.
Like, I understand CSS better than most people, but I'm not a guru like some. I can write SQL for anything I need but I couldn't tell you anything about performance tuning my SQL outside of seeks vs scans and the size of a lock.
Understanding the basics of these things isn't really a daunting task and that's why full stack devs aren't paid half a mil a year. But you have to accept at some point that if you're full stack then you're rarely going to be considered an expert in any field. That's not bad though having rounded knowledge is super good.
>You "know" all that, but do you actually __know__ all that.
Companies that underpay fullstack web developers usually don't actually care if their engineers __know__ all that, either. They just want the cheapest, fastest, CRUD app they can demo and ship out ASAP. As a result, these employers fail to recognize (and reward!) the fullstack web developers who do actually __know__ the full stack.
At my last job there was a rockstar web developer engineer who could easily double their compensation by moving to a larger company instead of a startup. My advocacy for them to get a raise or promotion was cast as 'the engineer is complaining again."