What can a Full Stack developer do for a Small Business?

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There is a real sense of satisfaction involved with working for a small business than for a big MNC. And that satisfaction manifests itself when you get to see your hard work and efforts bring success and profits to your firm. Now, this might seem like a tantalizing prospect- the prospect of rising to stardom when your small business becomes a big success. But, the main question that arises is: How can you best contribute to a small business? Of course, in a small business with one to ten employees, every person’s contribution matters big time. But, for me, having worked personally with a startup, the biggest impact on a startup’s success is definitely made by a full stack developer…

Why just a full stack developer?
This is simply because a full stack developer can do it all. A full stack developer can build awesome pixel-perfect UIs for front-end to complex functionalities and databases in the back-end. Needless to say, a tech firm’s web and mobile applications will be what users interact with directly. And as such the full stack developer will literally be creating the heart and soul of the firm. Others may envision the ideas, but without a full-stack developer, they will never come to fruition!

Small businesses cannot afford many employees
A fact that you need to understand is that a full stack developer is more about “breadth” than “height”. What this basically means is that a full stack developer is well versed in a lot of technologies, so that’s why his knowledge has more “breadth”. But, a front-end developer or a back-end developer who are experts in only their domain have more of a skill “height”. This is because they are experts in their area, but don’t know too many other technologies (lack the breadth). An argument that many people make is that it is better to hire experts in front-end and back-end rather than a full-stack developer. But, in case of a small business, they cannot afford to pay for both a front-end and a back-end engineer. They need people who can do a lot by themselves and still be very productive. And that’s exactly what a full-stack engineer brings to the table.

Full Stack Developers are NOT a myth
Many people argue that there aren’t any true full-stack developers out there. This is because of the multitude of technologies that exist now a days, and one person simply cannot be an expert at all of those technologies. I agree that this statement is true. But, in the case of a small business, the scenario is very different. What small businesses need – at the beginning – is a person who has high skills in a small set of technologies. Something as traditional as the HTML/JS/PHP/MySQL stack would work just great to help a small startup get their products online quickly and efficiently. Once they have more business coming in, they can always upgrade their systems to better technologies. But, the point is, without the initial contribution of the full-stack developer, the startup would’ve never reached a point where they could upgrade further. I am personally working as full-stack developer with a small startup, and I’m helping them get their web applications online. As I am most comfortable with the HTML/JS/PHP/MySQL stack, that is exactly what I’m using to bring their applications online quickly. This is helping the firm bring in lots of profits and funding and we are planning to eventually move to the MEAN stack.

Full Stack Developers can revitalize businesses
Talking from personal experience, sometimes what a firm needs is a person who can do it all and his or her enthusiasm to get things done. As we have already seen, for a full-stack developer to be successful in a small startup, he or she only needs to know a small amount of technologies to get the startup up and running. In my case, the startup had hired a front-end engineer, but he left due to personal reasons. The firm was pretty much stuck and in tatters. But, I was able to sweep in at the right time, and was able to build their critical applications (front-end and back-end) quickly and get them on track. Point being, the kind of pace and direction a full stack developer can inject into a small business, can be matched by very few job titles.

The gratitude and satisfaction
At the end of the day, it’s all about success. As a full stack developer, if you can contribute in the right way, and with everyone’s determination, your firm will reach the summit. And once it’s there, the tokens of gratitude that you would receive from your fellow team members and the CEO(s) and CIO(s) of the startup, will melt your heart and fill you up with immense pride. And that is a feeling worth fighting for, and more than enough reason to become a full-stack developer and get out there and help businesses reach the heights they deserve to be at! 🙂

Agradeep Khanra

Agradeep is pursuing a Master of Science in CSE from The University at Buffalo, NY, USA and you might call him a bit of a coding geek.

After building websites as a freelancer and for businesses, he soon learned that full-stack development is a very lucrative career choice. He gave up his successful job as a software developer at J.P. Morgan Chase and today, he couldn't be happier.
He is passionate about learning and contributing in a positive manner. He is currently building tools to help other students like him. He is also working as a part-time full-stack developer for a startup while studying for my MS courses. His contributions are directly enabling his startup to increase profits and bring in more customers.
Agradeep hopes to become a pioneer in his field and to use his skills to build applications that will help everyone in society.

By Agradeep Khanra

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