One thing I noticed about some of my newer contacts on LinkedIn, particularly from Nigeria, other parts of Africa, and ‘The Global South’, is the rise of this title ‘Junior Full Stack Developer’
I don’t mind having to admit, I find the title a bit perplexing.
9ja Cosmos isn’t my first rodeo. I’ve taken on Product Ownership and PM responsibilities as a senior employee (over 20 years) … I’ve seen things out the door in compliance with PLC (Product Life Cycle), TL9000 standards, ISO Standards, and a range of PM and Product Development Methodologies, and the employers own Quality Manual.
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That requires having overview of the actions of everyone in the mix to get a product out the door.
The concept of a Junior Full Stack Developer seems to me to be a contradiction in terms. Nobody can organically grow expertise uniformly across a tech stack – any tech stack. It’s just not possible.
They are most likely to have made their debut into one part of that tech stack as a point of entry. As they gradually get exposed to other parts of projects, they broaden their knowledge and experience, mostly also driven by their own motivation to do so.
Sometimes work can dry up (or cheapen) in their ‘anchor’ stack element, and they try to squeeze themselves into an element where there is more opportunity (or better pay), through circumstances rather than choice. The grow or die phenomenon.
Over the years, the development of software products has changed drastically, as has the working cultures that surround them.
In the pre-cloud days of developing things like Oracle, SAP, IBMs Informix, Sybase, and other distributed databases, Dev. Teams were closely knitted, and huddled around a centralized physical workspace.
This creates the opportunity for unique and special relationships to build, and those with uncommon knowledge find it hard to distance themselves from someone wanting a place under their wing. Even that grumpy ‘superiority complex’ ‘AH’ noted for poor team spirit, can be persuaded to (grudgingly) part with nuggets and boastfully excrete gems, with the right personal approach.
Modern development in the blockchain era has become very impersonalized. Better technologies have allowed us to make remote working operate seamlessly in ways they never did before. We have great SDKs, brilliant contribution management systems and document control, intuitive ‘version’ management, remote ‘collab’ sandboxes, and we can schedule video calls to and from anywhere on the planet.
While the ‘collab’ tools are many and varied, it has actually got much, much easier to appear to be a team player, while at the same time, keeping a personal distance, and wearing a ‘face mask’ to prevent the contagious spread of expertise and knowhow.
Informal Q&A opportunities for the ‘Imposter Syndrome’ brigade, have all but evaporated.
So how do we really equate the difference between a Junior, Regular, and Senior Full Stack Developer?
If we represent a tech stack as 5 glasses, is it a question of one being 5 glasses 30% full, another with all 60% full, and a third 95%+ full?
My instinct tells me the reality is, all those glasses have more variable completion levels than that, even for those calling themselves ‘senior’, and that many brandishing the (perplexing) title ‘Junior Full Stack Developer’ have little more than a ‘spit’ in some of those glasses as a ruse to say it isn’t empty!
I wondered if I am crazy or at a minimum a little bit ‘out of touch’ to think this way, but when I searched online, I found many eminents and YouTube videos vindicating my perspective.
In response to a YouTube video entitled ‘Junior Full Stack Developer is not a ‘thing’ ‘
One respondent (Joost Schuur – @joostschuu) said: ‘ I’m a 50 year old developer who has been doing web dev on and off for over 25 years now (yep, that’s possible) and still not comfortable with frontend (but getting better). So many reasons why the term junior (full stack developer) doesn’t make sense :)
But let’s not focus on ‘fault’ or ‘the pretence of the desperate’ because I’m not putting in all this literary effort to be part of a problem, but rather part of a solution.
So, let’s not call you ‘Junior Full Stack Developer’ but instead call you ‘Full Stack Developer (Aspirant, Intern, Trainee…)’, qualifying it at the end in a way that doesn’t imply expertise, is probably more accurate.
What can you do to improve your skill level and value proposition?
Communities. The ill-informed think communities are mindless people with frivolous ‘maxi’ statements, ramp talk, mindless gifs and memes in different platforms. That’s not community. The best communities prioritize ecosystem expansion above visibility (read -noise). Real community walks the walk more, and talks the talks less. Find Communities to be a meaningful part of. 9ja Cosmos for example, has a community on Discord.
GitHub and other visible participation SD repositories. – I get many people exploring opportunities with 9ja Cosmos, but when they understand we are community support right now, they back away, and say, well, when things change, contact me. To be polite, I will say ‘sure’. That won’t ever happen.
We have far too many people we can see on GitHub and have engaged with … Namebase is the lead commercial actor in the Handshake Blockchain space. Discord ‘Falci’ contributed to the update of the GitHub on Bob Wallet, and is now working for Namebase. Nathan Woodburn helped for free with the 9ja Cosmos Wallet, and is working for Namebase. Many examples like this. When we reach the employment juncture, we will look at who contributed meaningfully when they could.
Anybody that comes along later, will be like those who had chance to buy Bitcoin at $100 and then want it for $100 when it’s $50k+… that can’t fly!
This is not necessarily a promo for 9ja Cosmos or the Handshake Blockchain, though getting into ecosystems on GitHub that have less active actors means more visibility and chance to shine.
There are many open HIPs (Handshake Improvement Protocols) with opportunity to contribute and improve your credibility a lot more than wasting your time with technically inept posts on online platforms.
‘Fine Gyal’ or ‘Cool Guy’ pics don’t mean jack. ‘Confirmed’
There are several other ecosystems available on GitHub to be explored.
As said in Nigeria – ‘Comot from dat side’. ‘Do ting well well.’
DEMONSTRATE ‘Take ur time oh.’
John Mc Keown, Tekedia Fellow, 9ja Cosmos Owner, Handshake Director.
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