There’s a problem with those thousands of jobs available for Full Stack Engineers or Developers on LinkedIn, like a unicorn, that person isn’t real. Insert spit-take, read it, then tell me what you think.

There I said it, you might think this is a controversial or unpopular opinion but if you hear me out maybe you’ll agree with me, maybe not, but that’s what makes life worth living. I’ve believed this for a long time now, but it’s time to put a little more thought and time to flesh it out.

As for the term Developer or Engineer, yes technically they have different scopes but they mostly cover the same disciplines and principles, so I’ll use them interchangeably from here on out.

To say something doesn’t exist, I should probably first define what people think it is. So Looking across the internet to

A full-stack developer is a developer or engineer who can build both the front end and the back end of a website. The front end (the parts of a website a user sees and interacts with) and the back end (the behind-the-scenes data storage and processing) require different skill sets. Since full-stack developers are involved with all aspects of the development process, they must have expertise in both.

Coursera — What Is a Full-Stack Developer?

A full-stack developer can be defined as a developer or an engineer who works with both the front and back end development of a website, web application or desktop application. This means they can lead platform builds that involve databases, user-facing websites, and working with clients during the planning phase of projects.

Wikipedia — Solution Stack — Full Stack Developer

This sounds reasonable, which has led to the rise of this term to become part of engineering culture. This may have been reasonable but the world isn’t run by the LAMP stack anymore, the role of a software engineer isn’t as simple as it once was.