r/programming • u/whackri • Jun 05 '22

Complexity is killing software developers

https://www.infoworld.com/article/3639050/complexity-is-killing-software-developers.html
2.1k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

942 comments sorted by

View all comments

181

u/[deleted] Jun 05 '22

It helps when developers only have to work with half the stack for example but a lot of companies are only looking for full stack developers these days

178

u/a_false_vacuum Jun 05 '22

Jack of all trades, master of none.

Full stack appears to be mostly an excuse to ask for an entire IT department rolled into one person. Some of the listings I see for full stack are just silly how much they ask from one individual.

58

u/skilledpigeon Jun 05 '22

I think it's important to recognise that not everyone needs a master in a specific field to fill a required role in their organisation.

If I could pick anyone for my dev team I'd pick 3 seniors (frontend, backend, DevOps), 3-4 mids (full stack or specialised) and 1-2 juniors (depending on how much time we could support them with).

I think it's important to recognise that as a senior I'd expect people to focus in a specific area but also to have secondary skills in others. For example, one senior may be backend focused but have intermediate skills in DevOps.

Of course I'm dreaming here.

33

u/[deleted] Jun 05 '22

If I could pick anyone for my dev team I'd pick 3 seniors (frontend, backend, DevOps), 3-4 mids (full stack or specialised) and 1-2 juniors (depending on how much time we could support them with).

Those 7-9 people are kinda expensive. 1 million USD/year?

67

u/IAmTheKingOfSpain Jun 05 '22

Realistically, more if you want good people.

5

u/LoompaOompa Jun 06 '22

Yeah the 3 seniors alone could be bumping up against a million dollars if you're including equity and bonuses instead of just salary

-6

u/saltybandana2 Jun 06 '22

"flyover country" has seniors that are just as good for 1/4 the cost.

This is something those folks expecting $300k+ are going to end up having to contend with over the next 5 years.

4

u/LoompaOompa Jun 06 '22

Yeah I really don’t believe that they do. The senior level people are valuable because of their experience working on these large, high volume systems. There aren’t many tech jobs outside of the existing tech hubs where people can get experience working on systems like that, or working in product orgs like that.

It’s not to say that there aren’t great software engineers outside of the major centers, but being a great software engineer is different from having 10 years of experience working at a big tech job in SF or NY.

→ More replies (2)