How to Become a Full Stack Developer

What languages and technologies do you need to learn to become a full-stack developer and being a part of a dedicated team, one of the most popular specialists these days? Let's figure this out.

Vineet Maheshwari

What languages and technologies do you need to learn to become a full-stack developer and being a part of a dedicated team, one of the most popular specialists these days? Let’s figure this out.

According to StackOverflow research, a full-stack web developer is one of the most popular specializations among developers, so there’s no surprise, there are so many programs and courses to master this specialty.

Below I have collected links to resources that will help you gain the knowledge you need to become a full-stack developer and find your first job.

Contents

Frontend

HTML/CSS

All web courses start with HTML and CSS because they are web bricks. The following topics are often encountered both in interviews and actual work.

Semantic HTML
CSS box model

CSS processors and their benefits
CSS media inquiries
Bootstrap is a framework that helps to design pages and create prototypes fast and is a great source of fundamental knowledge about CSS.

JavaScript

Today JS is not just a language that allows you to create interactive interfaces. Every day, with each new library, it becomes a fundamental part of the web. According to StackOverflow research, in 2016 JavaScript became the most popular programming language in all areas of web development: backend, frontend, and full-stack developers. The following topics should be understood by every full-stack developer:

How to work with DOM
What is JSON and how to manage it

Important JavaScript concepts
Asynchronous control streams
Promise

Callback
Structuring the code
Tools: Webpack, Browserify, Gulp

How to work with popular frameworks
React
AngularJS

jQuery
Testing frameworks.

Backend

The second part of the full-stack developer’s work is the creation of server logic. Here I will consider the topics related not only to popular programming languages but also to databases, SQL, and application building process logic.

Backend languages

js is server implementation of JavaScript
Express is a framework for working with Node.js and fast creation/deployment of web applications
if you are interested in creating apps for Ruby on Rails and Sinatra

Python and popular frameworks Django and Flask
Java this language is very popular in full-stack development, but if you are interested in working in the corporate segment, you should take a closer look at it
PHP is an important language and a cornerstone of the web. Today it is used in many companies and is in high demand

Databases and Web Storage

Understanding SQL
Understanding NoSQL databases like Mongo. Understand which one of the options is better in a particular case. Know how to connect and work with a specific database using your server programming language
Redis

Memcached
Web Storage API to store cookies and application cache
Scaling up databases

HTTP & REST

HTTP is what allows the client to connect to the server. So it is necessary to know how this protocol works.

What is REST and why it is important?
Best practices in RESTful API design

How to work with ChromeDevTools
What are SSL certificates?
WebSockets

Web application architecture

To create a complex application you need to know how to structure the code, how to build a file structure of the project, where to store large files, how to structure the database.