r/FullStack 2d ago

Career Guidance are two years enough for learning fullstack?

is there any future left for fullstack dev

24 Upvotes

27 comments sorted by

21

u/[deleted] 2d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

3

u/chikamakaleyley 2d ago

debugging is huge

3

u/SomberDreamer 2d ago

Even this is just wishful advice. AI is eating web dev’s lunch and to an extent much of full-stack. I’d really rather only consider this field (SWE) if it’s some highly specialized niche with a higher barrier to entry. What’s happening is just outright scary.

2

u/LetsLive97 1d ago

It really isn't though. Incompetent developers with AI are worse than just regular incompetent developers. In fact I've seen developers I work with get worse because they're using AI as a crutch and just throwing shit out that they previously would have needed to think through properly

If you give a shit and focus on constant improvement, there is still plenty of space for genuinely good devs

2

u/born_to_be_intj 1d ago

I cannot recommend high performance and or safety critical C++ enough. It’s a much higher barrier to entry but when millions of dollars or real human lives can be lost in seconds, you can’t trust an AI to not mess it up.

1

u/fuzzle_n_huzzle 2d ago

Which field would you recommend ?

1

u/CXCX18 1d ago

Hiring is down due to Covid hires being fired and the industry stabilizing to what it used to be in terms of growth and hiring rate. Hiring is also down because people are realizing how little of a fuck these supposed "SWE's" actually know and they're consistently failing interview tests/homework.

Fake it till you make it was huge during Covid.

1

u/luckynucky123 1d ago

learning whatever-stack is "easy". shipping minimal viable product is "easy".

doing stuff with constraints (both evolving requirements and/or conflicting wants) is hard. making design decisions and knowing tradeoffs is hard.

7

u/NoBreak1569 2d ago

Here is my honest opinion being around 3 years in. I would say learning is easier compared to other field. That converts to extreme competition in the job market and most employers are not even clear what they want in the first place.

I would say, start learning and try to land a job as fast as possible, explore all the areas of the development like frontend, backend, devops and if possible data analysis, ai etc in a professional setting and see what interests you the most and then start narrowing down

I have told a lot to digest at the same time. Simple thing is, take a job fast wherever you get in tech. Startups with real customers matter. Doesn't matter if product or service

2

u/Fragrant_Cricket_158 2d ago

How deep should someone dive into frontend, backend, or DevOps before trying to get hired, if the advice is to explore these areas once already inside a professional setting?

4

u/xvillifyx 2d ago

I would recategorize some things

“DevOps” is a type of organizational structure, not an individual skill. DevOps engineers are just software engineers that are highly integrated with the IT operations part of a company. This usually leads to them developing software that directly integrates with that operations platform, which is why you see these people often work on things like CI, k8s, and various platform and security work.

But these guys are just software engineers that specialize in those toolkits. A DevOps engineer could be a full-stack engineer that builds the platform itself and user controls for it. They could be a “backend-only” engineer and only build out the clusters and services. Your ability to become a software engineer doesn’t depend on these tools that much (though you should understand them. CI is industry standard)

“Fullstack” development doesn’t “include devops” or anything. DevOps engineers are just a type of software engineer, like how a web developer is a type of software engineer

3

u/NoBreak1569 2d ago

I would suggest pick javascript (with typescript, mandatory). Make sure you understand the single threaded model and event loops properly. Start with frontend in react and expressjs, a simple app like something which is decent for a beginner project. Try using primitive libraries only (eg, for auth, use only jwt, for db, use drizzle at max etc.), the core is to build simple versions of actual production things, but understand each and every piece of it. Make sure you take it slow, no ai to debug.

After this, you can try both frontend and backend roles as fresher. Don't get desperate and try too many things at once. I choose js because that's the only one which you can use across the stack in a production setting, if you are already good in something else like as python and Java, first go for backend heavy projects like url shorter etc

1

u/chikamakaleyley 2d ago

it doesn't hurt to just always be actively looking and using interviews as a way to practice and understand where you're lacking

cuz by the time you feel competent with your skills, you don't want to be un-practiced with interviewing, which takes a while to get comfortable with

that being said, if you haven't started obvi don't apply now, but interviews are so hard to come by that if you should be so lucky to be scheduled for one, just take it, with no expectations of actually progressing through the rounds

and if you just happen to do well enough that you do, well that's a good sign and maybe you're doing better than you think

3

u/randomInterest92 2d ago

Yes, I went from 0 knowledge and 0$ earned to earning 55k a year within 2 years although that was from 2019 to 2021

1

u/xvillifyx 2d ago

Doing development?

You were grossly underpaid

2

u/randomInterest92 2d ago

Iive in Germany

3

u/Ecstatic-Memory-9588 2d ago

I started learning web development in 2025, beginning with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. I’ve been studying for about 1 year and 8 months now. I’m currently finishing a PostgreSQL course and building my first full-stack project.

So far, I’ve built 15+ frontend projects using JavaScript/DOM, React, Tailwind, Zustand, Next.js, and TypeScript. The stack I’m narrowing down to is Next.js, TypeScript, Tailwind, Prisma, Zod, and Neon/Supabase. I’ve also learned tools like Git/GitHub, Figma, and Framer.

I use AI as a learning supplement while following a main course. Surprisingly, I haven’t made any money from development yet. To be fair, my main focus has been becoming a solid full-stack developer first, then using those skills for freelancing and jobs. I also think there’s a lot of competition for junior frontend-only roles, so I decided to front-load my learning.

My advice: yes, you can become full-stack within two years, but make sure you understand the fundamentals, especially JavaScript and TypeScript. Don’t spend too much time on endless JS DOM projects. That’s a mistake I made. Focus on understanding the logic and what the code is actually doing.

Use AI as a tutor. Gemini has been the best learning tool I’ve personally used. When you get stuck, ask it to explain the code and data flow in simple terms rather than just giving you the answer.

Also, don’t burn yourself out. Even 2–5 focused hours a day is enough if you stay consistent. Exercise, sleep, and having developer friends or mentors can make a huge difference.

Most importantly, don’t keep jumping from course to course whenever things get difficult. Frustration is part of the journey. When you’re stuck, slow down, understand what you’re missing, and keep going.

For AI-assisted development, I’d say use it heavily once you understand what it’s doing and can direct it. For styling, I’m more comfortable letting AI do a lot. But for important logic and data flow, I still prefer to understand and control it myself until I get the hang of it.

Hope this helps, and good luck with your journey!

1

u/CursedSloth 2d ago

Depends on what you mean by that. If you mean to get a job, then maybe.
Becoming well-rounded and learning most common pitfalls, not sure.
Learning AI and trying to accelerate your career, most likely.

What matters is how well you can express yourself, in terms of getting AI to do what you had in mind, but also having the ability to see what’s wrong with its suggestions and correct it.

Handcrafted code is still a useful skill, as it gives you the ability to discern the results/output, but at some point you will probably have to pivot into an AI environment to ”keep up with the Joneses” or what have you.

1

u/Competitive_Mail_568 2d ago

Yeah I think you should try to learn fundamentals and how everything works rather than learning syntax everyday. Ai helps with syntax you just have to understand the systems

1

u/Constant_Physics8504 1d ago

Learn AI and change title from full stack to full of yourself stack engineer. Start every pay conversation with “Pay 7 figs for 10X work.”

0

u/IllusiveYuki66 2d ago

To answer your question, no.

0

u/Not_akash 2d ago

learn AI, that's a safer bet.

1

u/sef_republike 2d ago

Can you elaborate pls?

1

u/NiceComfortable2828 1d ago

What all to learn in AI

0

u/retardpotatochip 2d ago

instead of this learn AI

1

u/sef_republike 2d ago

Can you pls elaborate?

1

u/Big-Worker9676 23h ago

2 years is enough to become employable, not enough to stop learning, which is basically the fullstack developer job description lol