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Comment by acjohnson55 | Hacker News Reader

Eh, I think it's fine. If you're going in at entry level, your expertise won't be that deep, but full-stack just means open to joining a team that does front-end, back-end or both. The typical bootcamp grad can develop into a specialist or generalist as they go, given support and resources.

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I think saying you are full-stack is misleading and it sets job-seekers up for failure. And I would argue it's not fine, since it's these same types of people whining about what terrible luck they are having (purely anecdotal of course).

A few ideas that I think would give these grads some better luck:

- Update your profile to say "Interested in joining a front-end or back-end team" or "tech generalist with a focus on X"

- Elaborate even further in your About section and let people know which of the two you are stronger in and what experience you have

- Swap out "full-stack" for "web developer"

Don't tell me you're something you're not. Under-promise, over deliver. Seeing full-stack on a resume sets my expectations for whoever I'm about to interview regardless of the number of years of experience.

edit: styling

full stack is a front-end engineer and they're willing to deal with the shitty JS stack.

My personal experience interviewing for "full stack" and "front end" roles.

Full stack interview tracks seem to be identical to backend/generalist tracks. Purely leetcode questions up the wazoo.

Some front end interview tracks are the same. But I'm seeing more and more cases where they will throw "implement feature X in JavaScript" type questions, not leetcode.

This assumes that they are applying to companies with separate frontend and backend teams. My company only has one small team so we all do a bit of everything: frontend web, react native app, backend, ops stuff. We'd never hire someone who was only front-end or only backend because that would leave half the job they weren't doing. But we have hired junior engineers who have only a little professional experience.

Seeing full-stack on a resume shouldn't set any expectations other than they have and intend to continue working on both front-end and backend code.

I'm not sure if you're a hiring manager, but I am. In my experience, what someone writes regarding their "stackness" means nothing to me. It only matters to the extent that it matches recruiter searches. I care about someone's practical experience, their fit for my team's work, and their ability to learn and adapt.

I'm not a hiring manager, but I've interviewed plenty and given my opinions to the hiring managers. I've also discussed candidates with fellows developers and have heard "that's not a full-stack developer" more times than I can count, which leads to "I'm not sure they know what they are talking about."

The point of my response is to say, if something isn't working, change the formula. Here's some anecdotal evidence given my experience that might help. Stop complaining on LinkedIn about it. I personally look at LinkedIn and if I see multiple posts from you complaining about how unfair things are it's going to be an immediate pass.

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