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Managers and recruiters, what are you looking for in a intern/early-career full-stack engineer? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Honestly, I'm so done. None of the YouTube videos are helpful. Some videos have projects that are so basic and lazy, some are very much tied to a specific platform, like Cloudflare, AWS and GCP, and some are so insanely difficult, I am not sure what project I'm supposed to do.

Some say: to-do projects are too basic. Some say that URL shortener is not worth it. Some say that real-time chat apps are overdone. There's also front-end stuff, like React, Vue and Svelte. And if that's not worse, there's also opinionated answers, for back-end like for example, Rust being the future, avoiding JS or Python, or using niche backend like Phoenix or Laravel and micro-framework in some niche functional language. Then there's also this low-code/no-code stuff. We're also supposed to learn extras like Docker, Kubernetes, websockets, service workers and what-not other stuff.

I've wasted most of my time worrying about the stack and idea, that I've left them incomplete. What do I even make then as my project? A git hosting platform replica? A live-streaming social media? Almost like as if people are looking to hire a one-man army to handle the entire department. I've also completed the core lectures for FSO, but I'm still struggling.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Almost like as if people are looking to hire a one-man army to handle the entire department.

Well yea, that's usually the point of full stack. If you want to do something like that, you probably want to work a smaller scale company... Like if you're in a team of 5 people, the situation arises of "Oh sysop thing needs to be done, who to ask? I guess @RonSijm (backend dev) is close enough..."

So to have a junior full stack is pretty counterintuitive. Otherwise the situation arises of "Oh xyz needs to be done, who to ask? - Well be have a dedicated senior backend engineer, a dedicated senior front-end engineer, dedicated senior sysops.... 'Oh let me ask @[email protected], this junior full-stack'" - yea no.

Why are you aiming to be an intern/early-career full-stack engineer? The only kinda company I can think of where something like that would be something with barely any IT, where you're just the "jack of all trades" goto guy for IT stuff - so that you can be the one-man army that does everything

So honestly I'd focus on one area first - backend, frontend, dev/sys-ops - especially as you're mentioning

I’ve wasted most of my time worrying about the stack

Yea that gets even worse when you have worry about the entire stack, and work with an entire stack of components you're not really familiar with. If you're at least somewhat senior in one part - lets say backend - at least you're in a position of "Ok, I have a backend that I'm comfortable about" - "Now lets see if I can make a frontend for it" - or - "Lets see if I can manage to dockerize this, and host it somewhere."

And if you know the fundamentals of one stack-part first (data-structures, design patterns, best practices) - you can apply that knowledge to other areas and expand from there

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Why are you aiming to be an intern/early-career full-stack engineer?

Because I'm applying to startups. The barrier to entry for corporate jobs is very high - what I mean is that there's too much of us. In such situations, people will ask recruiters who happen to be their blood relatives or neighbors to recommend them. But I do not have that privilege. And the problem with startup is poor pay, with too much skill requirement. The poor pay is still understandable, but what's understandable is the high skill requirement.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago

And the problem with startup is poor pay, with too much skill requirement.

Yea, that's the problem with startups, they're poor, so by their logic "we only have money for 1 person" - "so if we hire a full stack that does everything, that's cheapest." - "What is the cheapest dev? An intern / junior." - "So what if we get a junior full stack :bigbrain: "

And then they create a vacancy for a CEO that can build their entire start-up and label it a junior-full-stack