What A Recruiter Is Looking For While Hiring a Full Stack Developer

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With everything going digital, the demand for full-stack developers has gained new heights. Every company wants their product to go digital, so they need to hire full-stack developers who can create a website for the company from scratch.

Full Stack Developers are in high demand owing to their diverse coding skills. Smart organizations prefer to hire one full-stack developer, rather than hiring two or three engineers to do the same job.

But, hiring a full-stack developer is like finding a needle in a haystack. It's a tough challenge for a recruiter because not every other developer is good at both front-end and back-end development. That’s why recruiters show utmost care while recruiting a full-stack developer.

1. Who is a Full-Stack Developer?

In layman’s terms, a full stack developer is good at every domain like front-end development UI/UX, backend development, DevOps, cloud computing, etc. Most importantly, he/she can adopt new and trending technologies fast.

Full Stack developers can develop any complex application from scratch, with the proper understanding of how each technical layer (mainly Presentation, Business logic, and Database Layer) should integrate with the other.

In most firms, a full-stack developer gets his team switched every 6 months. This means he/she has to follow the trend i.e. he should be a “jack of all trades, master of none”.

2. Technical skills that are looked for in a full stack developer

a) Good at Backend, Network, and Hosting Technologies:

The section is basically about system administration and optimal utilization of website resources, cloud resources, etc. One should know which of the things can cause the breakdown.

Must have qualities of a full stack developer are -

  1. Linux - It is a must for full-stack developers to get the most out of their vast knowledge.
  2. Cloud Technologies - They should know how to manage website resources hosted on different cloud hosting services like AWS, Azure, etc.
  3. Background Processing - They should know what's going on the server, how requests are queuing up, is there any bottleneck in processing, etc.
  4. Managing API layers - The candidate should know how to make raw data into a machine-readable format. For this, they must be familiar with Node.js, PHP, etc.
  5. VCS - The candidate should be familiar with VCS (Version control system) like Git/GitHub, Gitlab, Bitbucket, etc.
  6. Cross-platform proficiency - They should be capable of developing cross-platform applications (web, mobiles, and desktop).

b) In-Depth Knowledge of UI/UX:

The candidate should take care of the user experience i.e. they should take necessary actions to make the user experience pleasant by taking care that the available layout is readable easily, and maintaining the aesthetics of the website/application.

One should have a good understanding of what a good design is. For that, they must be familiar with:

  1. HTML 5
  2. CSS
  3. JavaScript frameworks like React, Angular, Vanilla, and other popular frameworks.
  4. Making a responsive design.
  5. Developing hybrid applications (for desktops, mobiles, and other smart devices).

c) Understanding the Business Need

Though the full stack developers are not part of the sales and marketing team, the design and overall experience they provide to the end-user affects the company's growth.

Therefore, the candidate must know what are the needs of the customer/user, what more features do they want. They should provide such solutions so that they can impact the company's growth positively.

d) Data Modelling

Last but not the least, one should be good at modeling the data. Because the hardware resources are limited so they should be highly efficient while taking system resources, like when he receives data from users via the front end he should store it in a database optimally.

Therefore, the candidate should know how to use different database management systems such as MySQL, MongoDB, etc. Also, he must know what are advantages of one over the other and under different circumstances which will be the best one to use.

e) A Quick Learner

The most important skill of a full-stack developer is that he can switch from one technology to another in very little time and can finish tasks before the deadline. So an organization will hire a candidate who can switch between technologies.

Nowadays, many tech stacks (combination of different programming languages, frameworks, and technologies) are trending in the market and most corporations are working on one or more of the popular tech stacks. Some of the popular tech stacks are -

  1. MERN - MongoDB, Express, ReactJS, and Node.js.
  2. MEAN - MongoDB, Express, AngularJS, and Node.js
  3. Django - Django, Python, and MySQL.
  4. Ruby on Rails - Ruby, PHP, and MySQL.  

The recruiter checks if the candidate is familiar with the tech stack their company is working with or has some experience with any of the above-listed ones.

4. Wrapping Up

Though the domain of full-stack development is blooming, the competition is also quite high. And to stand out among thousands of applicants you should have experience in different tech stacks and should have some amazing projects with the latest technologies on your resume. If one fulfills most of the criteria for full stack developer then chances are high that he/she will get selected as a full stack developer in a reputed firm.

If you want to get guidance from the industry’s top-notch full-stack developers who are working in your dream company, do check out our Full Stack Development Course and fast-track your career in the IT industry. You’ll become an expert at the front-end and back-end JavaScript technologies of the most popular MERN Stack(MongoDB, Express, React, and Node.js). Learn to build responsive web applications using both front-end and back-end technologies and become an expert Full-Stack Web Developer