“Full stack developers vs specialized developers: Let’s learn who you should hire to achieve desired results with maximum proficiency.”

Technological advancements are fostering rapid growth and inspiring entrepreneurs. If you are also willing to dig deep into this sphere by following your vision for building web or mobile apps, then hiring strong engineering professionals is the first challenge you have to come across.

When we think about hiring developers, they are often classified into two categories i.e. full stack developers and specialized developers. The decision of whom to hire often leads entrepreneurs into a state of confusion.

If you are also dealing with a similar dilemma, then this blog is meant for you. Here in this blog, we will make a head-to-head comparison between the full-stack developers vs specialized developers to help you find out which one you should choose.

Let’s get started, but first, let’s gain a better understanding of developers.

Who are Full Stack Developers?

Put simply, full-stack developers can be referred to as all-rounders.

They hold the expertise in working on both the frontend and backend development of your project. This means they can assist you with starting from graphic designing to writing the business logic of your application.

For instance, if you are thinking of attaining your web app development using the MEAN Stack framework. In this context, a full-stack developer is one who holds expertise in MongoDB, Express, Angular, and Node to help you meet all your development goals.

Benefits of Hiring Full-Stack Developers

Having the understanding of who are full stack developers, now let’s move ahead to explore the benefits of hiring full stack developers:

Economical

This is one of the biggest benefits of working with a full-stack developer. Since one person will handle both the frontend and backend requirements, the development cost will be lower.

Greater Efficiency

While working with a person holding expertise in all tiers of web application development you can expect the best level of collaboration between both frontend and backend development. Better collaboration is the key to improved efficiency.

Effective Troubleshooting

The best practice of troubleshooting is to identify the root cause as early as possible and solve the root cause to ensure the smooth working of the application. Full stack developers can identify the issue related to UI/UX design or backend logic solely and fix them without asking for external help.

Flexibility

Having expertise in multiple technologies, full-stack developers give you flexibility in the selection of the technology. Depending upon your project requirement, you can choose the best technology and steer your project to successful execution.

Complete Ownership of Coding

As said above, full-stack developers hold complete responsibility for the project coding. Therefore, if any issue occurs you can consult with the developer to make appropriate changes to it.

Drawbacks of Hiring Full-Stack Developers

Full stack serves a lot of great benefits to the business, also there are some drawbacks associated with them. In order to ensure your project development goes as smoothly as you have expected, it is advised to be aware of the drawbacks of hiring full-stack developers:

Lack of Knowledge Regards Latest Trends & Technologies

Technical landscapes are highly competitive today, and every participant is looking for a way to differentiate themselves from the competition by offering something unique in adherence to the latest technology trends. However, with full-stack engineers, the lack of the latest trends and technologies is the most obvious drawback.

Facing a Hard Time in Tracking Project

Full stack experts often deal with the major chunk of the project instead of breaking it into the smallest tasks. This makes it hard to keep track of the project’s progress.

The Average Quality of Service

As a general trade, when you opt to achieve multiple trades in a single attempt, the quality of work will be compromised for sure. A similar thing can also be experienced with full-stack engineers.

Who Are Specialized Developers?

Put simply, specialized developers refer to developers who hold specialties in working with one or two specific technologies. They hold a profound understanding of these technologies, they can be called masters developers of that particular technology.

For instance, if you are looking for a web application and the technology that you have chosen for backend development is Django. In this case, you can hire Specialized developers with deep expertise in the Django framework.

Benefits of Hiring Specialized Developers

Here you will get to know about the numerous benefits that you can avail yourself by hiring specialized developers:

High Quality of Work

Since specialized developers deal in specified technology only, they have a deep understanding of it, therefore you can expect high-quality work.

Stay on Top of the Latest Trends

Since they specialize in one specific technology, they have ample time to stay current with the latest development trends. The knowledge of the latest trend will allow them to develop solutions catering to the current needs of users. By doing so the chances of seeing success are likely high.

Easy Distribution of Task

Every developer working on your project will deal with a specific part of the project development only.

Drawbacks of Hiring Specialized Developers

Hiring specialized developers comes with a lot of advantages and emphasizes the quality of work following the latest advancements and trends. However, specialized developers also come with certain disadvantages as mentioned below:

1. Highly Expensive

This is one of the most obvious drawbacks of working with specialized developers. You have to hire dedicated developers for frontend and backend, therefore the cost is going to be higher in comparison to full-stack developers.

2. Teamwork and Dependability

The need for teamwork and dependability is paramount when working with specialized developers. For instance backend, developers entrust the frontend developers to lead the project from the beginning to the final stage. If communication between these team members is lacking, it could lead to the deadline not being met.

Full Stack Developers vs Specialized Developers: Whom Should You Hire?

After knowing the pros and cons of full-stack developers vs specialized developers. The next question you need to answer is who should you hire:

Here we’re going to give you an overview of when you should sull stack or when opting for the specialized developers is an ideal option:

When Should You Hire Full-Stack Developers?

1. When you’re working on a simple project: If you’re working on a simple project and looking for an efficient way to speed up the development process, then hiring full-stack developers is the best possible solution for you.

2. When you have a limited budget; Since full-stack developers are cost-effective ways to meet all your web app development requirements, you can hire them to release your digital solution without spending a fortune.

3. When you are in the initial stage of starting your business: If you’re a startup struggling in your earlier days to strengthen your digital presence, then full-stack developers can help you meet all development goals under your tight budget and time.

When Should You Hire Specialized Developers?

1. When you’re working on complex projects: Specialized or dedicated developers are proven to be the best addon when you’re working on a complex project. They will divide your project into multiple small segments and work toward achieving these goals to make sure your vision is translated into a sure reality adhering to your expectations.

2. When you’re preferring the quality of work over the cost: Specialized developers are well-versed in leveraging the latest trends and technology advancements. Therefore you can expect the paramount quality of work that will put you ahead of the competition.

How to Find Experienced Developers to Achieve Desired Outcomes?

Now, I hope you have made the decision about which kind of developers you should hire. This is the time when the real challenges are about to begin as you start working on the endeavor of how to find experienced developers.

ITFirms is one of the leading firms that evaluate app and web developers worldwide. Depending on multiple parameters such as developers’ expertise, location, years of experience they have, and how well-versed they are with the latest technologies.

We have compiled a list of some of the best web developers and top app developers for you to browse through, compare, and choose one that perfectly fits your needs.

Frequently Asked Questions

What skills do full-stack developers possess?

Full-stack developers are comprised of both frontend and backend technologies:

• Frontend technologies: HTML, CSS, BootStrap, AngularJS
• Backend technologies: PHP, Python, JavaScript, Laravel, and so on

What to look for when hiring developers?

Below we have given you an overview of the few most common traits that you should look for when hiring developers:

• Experience
• Excellent problem-solving abilities
• Confidence to overcome your project challenge
• A perspective on testing
• Communication skills

Full stack vs specialized developers: who are in demand?

Full-stack developers are in high demand since they allow entrepreneurs to save both time and cost. Additionally, specialized developers are also leading the race with quality of work as their top priority. The selection of which developer is the best choice for you depends on your project requirements. Therefore be acquitted with your requirements and select the developers that best met your project requirements.

The post How Do Full Stack Developers Stack Up Versus Specialized Developers? appeared first on Top ITFirms - Result of In-depth Research & Analysis.

There has been no shortage of posts trying to define full-stack development in their way. Realize how high the limits are when you specialize!

The basics of the programming languages or frameworks that the developers learn today can often be picked in a matter of hours with an internal discussion with the team or according to the technologies prevalent in the market, budget and time constraints. This often lacks the requirements of the client or maybe ignorance or lack of interest from the customer’s end. Developers no longer add skills to their CV’s by taking a course. They adopt the easier way by downloading some code and start hacking through tutorials and demo code. Knowing something in web development and truly mastering it makes a huge difference. Getting disillusioned by your skills and deploying a code that has already been used by many users earlier is disillusioning. If you write a web application that scales well under huge load – you receive some great feedback-but does that make you the master of everything that you used in this stack? The fact is, you were good at implementing the layers that were required to make things work for that specific project.

Something True

No. 1: Who is a full stack developer = A person acting as a panacea for all software development activities – designing, development, and testing single-handedly. This involves translating user requirements into the overall architecture, implementing the system, coordinating with the client, writing backend code, writing optimized front-end code, understanding-creating-debugging the database queries, creating test code, monitoring the performance of web applications and infrastructure and troubleshooting the application.

No. 2: There is less chance to find a good full stack developer!

Requisite Skills for a Full-Stack Developer.

(In no particular order)

• Data structure and algorithms,
• Programming languages,
• Source control,
• Text editors,
• Databases,
• IDE’s (Integrated Development Environment),
• Operating System,
• Networking Basics,
• Basics of Testing,
• Cross-Platform Software,
• Encryption and Cryptography,
• SDLC (Software development life cycle),
• Microsoft Excel (helps to track progress, data analysis,
• Maintenance of data,
• Data quality check,
• Definitely for project planning.

In particular, HTML/CSS, JavaScript languages, Back end Languages, HTTP/HTTPS and REST,  Databases/Web Storage, Web Architecture.

What did it mean earlier?

A senior full-stack engineer architects a modular Backbone, similar to an AngularJS front-end whilst optimizing content delivery and tweaking hardware-accelerated layers in the CSS, followed by implementing an async non-blocking backend (which also pre-renders templates on the server), and pushing to an AWS cluster which has been built considering the application design, its security, and scalability. Designing responsive UI and mobile-first is quintessential. Utilizing a CSS pre-processor to save time is equally important. Setting up Nagios Core (monitoring and alerting for servers, switches, applications) or Solarwinds NPM (Network Performance Monitor) or PRTG Network Monitor by Paessler or ManageEngine OpManager or Zabbix or Icinga or OpenNMS for monitoring. Apart from this, ideally, when the continuous Integration Server detects an error in the build due to untimely failure of your end-to-end tests, it gets it to send you a text message with the build error messages. These last few are add-on bonuses.

Finding the Real Full-Stack Hero: The Approach of Siloing Responsibilities

N.B: They have to be true to one’s profile…taking time out to upgrade one’s skills

The rapid emergence of more complicated technologies and more layered stacks makes it increasingly difficult for developers to maintain full-stack knowledge. As refined front-end (client-side) and back-end (server-side) specialists begin to emerge this paved the way to “Full-Stack development”.

As time wore on, development teams felt a shift back to more complicated technologies and more layered stacks in the early 2010’s encouraged configuring roles. As both the server-side and client-side work become polarized resulting in the popularization of front-end and back-end development. In response, full-stack development became popular in an attempt to distinguish developers that didn’t identify with the front-end and back-end specialist binary. They established themselves as a third type of developers – the ones that could handle both sides of the coin on their own.

What does it mean now?

Facebook as a classic example hired only “Full-Stack Developers” who were until then and even now considered unicorns – who go beyond a senior engineer and details everything.

Agreeing Mutually

A full-stack developer and a senior engineer might necessarily not be the same. Notwithstanding the magic that they create, they must be familiar if not master every layer of the stack. The source control, data infrastructure, distributed computing, etc.

Let’s define the stack

:

There are similarities in architectural design and patterns across different stacks:

• Lamp Stack

LAMP is a widely used model for web service stacks. Its name “LAMP” is an acronym of four open-source components.

L= Linux: An open-source operating system

A= Apache: Widely used web server software

M= MySQL: Popular open source database

P=PHP: Server-side open-source scripting language

A popular example is Facebook.

• Mean Stack

MEAN Stack Application Development is witnessing a growing trend in usage. MEAN is an abbreviation of:

M = MongoDB: NoSQL Database

E = Express: Easy to use light and portable web program framework

A = Angular.js: Robust framework for developing HTML5 and JavaScript- web programs

N = Node.is: a server-side JavaScript run time

• Mern Stack

MERN is a collection of JavaScript-based technologies:

M=MongoDB: Popular NoSQL database

E=Express: Light and portable web program framework

R=React: A javascript library for building user interfaces

N=Node.js: A server-side JavaScript run time

This stack currently in huge demand as it is widely used to develop web applications.

On the designing end, a full stack developer is required to realize the importance of user experience to a successful application – create wireframes, mockups, prototypes, PSD files – they as well need to understand the rationale behind the design and talk to designers about what can and can’t be implemented effectively.

They also need to consider the hardware on which the stack has to be implemented. The performance of the full stack developer and the subsequent application can only be understood by knowing how the software interacts with the underlying hardware, how SQL processes queries and how the CPU executes those instructions and how the disk drives deliver the data across various layers of caching.

Then the network also has a huge impact on the performance of the application. If it has to be deployed on a cloud server, taking advantage of Amazon’s infrastructure to build a virtual server farm and data center that’s almost infinitely scalable.

Conceivable

Therefore there is a need to understand the cloud computing, Amazon and its APIs – yes being a Full-Stack Developer is a tall order and the situation is much more aspirational than it seems at the very first instance. It goes beyond being a senior developer. Having a working knowledge of the underlying frontend, backend, and database and testing technologies are not easy.  Performing as DevOps – acting as an application developer and also performing other tasks like testing and deploying the application. The overall application must be beautiful and efficient enough to run on the prescribed platform. Therefore the ultimate choice of the technologies, the skills at hand, the client’s demand and the allotted budget and time factorize the importance of a full stack developer.

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