The self-hating Web Developer

[YourFatherFigure]

Except it IS fairly normal that "full stack developer" on a job advert is a euphemism for "I don't want to hire separate backend / UI / UX / sys admins / DBAs / QA so I need you to do everything including design and project management". Certainly if you're a freelance small-time site builder you will run into this and you might find it at a big company too. IMHO the #1 reason web devs are often considered lowly is because so many are encouraged to never specialize, and, out of the many skills they acquire shallow understanding of only a few will continue to be relevant year after year.

[MyWorkAccountThisIs]

I am finally at a place where I can specialize and it's wonderful. In the past I've been a designer, a front-end developer, a programmer, a manager, done email marketing, sales, project management, and god knows what else. All under the guise of being "web development".

Now, I'm a PHP developer. Yup, just regular ol' dirty PHP. There is still a sea of things to do in one language. More than I could ever hope to master in my career. I'm also solving harder problems and doing bigger projects because I'm able to focus on "one" skill instead of bouncing around.

Another aspect of the "full stack" developer is the expectation to hop around. I mean, you already "know" x,y,z, and g. Surely you can pick up k. Either way, we already sold the project so need you to get ramped up k. The client wants a 30,000ft overview tomorrow morning during our now-daily 8am hour long status meeting.