Full-stack developers are in high demand. Their salaries are pretty high compared to the front end and other developers. High demand and good salaries make everyone fancy to become a full stack developer. At our company, we have many highly passionate and experienced full-stack developers. Out of our years of experience on full-stack development, we are writing this blog to help the budding developers to become a full stack developer.
We know that anything worth having doesn’t come easy, the same applies here. Becoming a full-stack developer needs great efforts from your side. But all your efforts will pay off one day. There is a lot one has to learn to become a full-stack web developer. It doesn’t mean that it is rocket science but it’s not an easy task too. Here you are supposed to be the master of both front end and back end technologies.
The average salary of full stack developer in the USA is estimated at $110,615 per year.
The demand for full-stack developers is high because many companies generally look for people who can multitask. At our company, we also have a high demand for the MEAN stack development services we offer. We personally prefer MEAN stack for full-stack web development because of its benefits. Read the following articles to know why we choose MEAN stack: Benefits Of MEAN Stack
Now let’s jump to the actual point how to become a full-stack web developer and what all you should learn:
Front-end Frameworks
Before learning to code one should be strong in algorithms and data structures. Start learning easy things first, learn the front end technologies like HTML, CSS, and Javascript. These technologies help you to develop the front end of the web application. The front end is the part of the application that users see and interact. While building the front end of the application you have to concentrate on UX design and work on the usability of the application. Frontend development also needs a fair understanding of the Bootstrap framework, media queries, and DOM.
You should not only learn to code in plain javascript/jquery you should also gain experience in using frameworks like Angular/React. Structuring the code you write is the most pivotal thing especially in front-end development.
ALSO READ: Mean stack vs Full-stack developers – Find the right stack for your business
Back-end Frameworks
Backend development involves business logic, database interaction, authentication etc. For the back end, you have to learn any general-purpose language like Java, C#, Python, Ruby, Golang etc. Learning any two of this languages will definitely improve your value. You should not only gain deep knowledge of these languages but also be able to work with the frameworks of these languages. Frameworks can make the development process much easier and faster by providing the structure. The features like MVC pattern, security, less code & other faster development features will make every developer use the frameworks. Ruby on Rails which is based on Ruby is one of the easy to learn and use frameworks for beginners. Learning Ruby On Rails will help you to develop both front end and back end of the application. A backend developer should have a fair understanding of APIs.
Image Source:gearsi.de
Databases
Along with the general-purpose language, you have to gain knowledge on any of the relational or nonrelational databases like SQL or NoSQL. SQL is a relational database and NoSQL is a nonrelational database. Non-relational databases are also called as distributed databases. The major difference between them is the way they store or structure data. Some examples of SQL databases are Oracle, MySql, SQL Server. Unlike SQL databases NoSQL databases are tableless, they store data in an unstructured way which makes them more flexible and easy to use. Some examples of NoSQL databases are MongoDB, CouchDB, BigTable. But learning both will be an added advantage. You should also understand which database to use according to your project.
Once you gain a good knowledge of databases you also have to learn to connect the database with backend language. Learning about In-memory data structure stores like Redis is also a big advantage. Redis can be used as a database, cache and message broker.
ALSO READ: Why Mean stack development matters to enterprises?
Deployment
It has been a long list: frontend, backend, and databases and it’s not over, now comes the most important thing that is Deployment. You should learn to deploy the project using a service like Amazon, Heroku, and other services and learning to automate the deployment process is also very important.
Image source: progressly.com
General Topics:
The other general things a full stack developer should have knowledge on are The architecture of web applications, microservice architecture, and web development tools like git.
Final Suggestions:
It is not necessary that you should master all the points we have said here. But even basic knowledge on each point said here will prosper you. Now that you know what all you should learn to become a full-stack developer start learning each topic using the tutorials or other resources. Even joining in Linkedin groups will greatly help you to learn the latest happenings in this field.