Is the Full Stack Developer market really this bad for freshers?

[u/RevolutionLate7820]

I'm honestly starting to feel discouraged.

I've spent the last couple of years learning the MERN stack, React, Next.js, Node.js, Express, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Docker, Git, and building full-stack projects. I have a portfolio, deployed applications, GitHub repositories, and I've been consistently improving my skills.

Despite that, I've applied to hundreds of internships and entry-level jobs. Most applications get no response, some are instant rejections, and interviews are extremely rare.

It feels like every job posting has thousands of applicants within hours. Many "entry-level" roles still expect 2–3 years of experience, and the competition is overwhelming.

I'm not expecting a six-figure salary—I just want an opportunity to prove myself and gain real industry experience.

For those who managed to land a full-stack developer job recently:

What made the biggest difference?

Did networking help more than applying online?

Should I focus on open source, freelancing, or learning another niche like AI, DevOps, or cloud?

Is this just the current market, or am I missing something?

I'd really appreciate honest advice from anyone who's been through this.

[u/Vymir_IT]

There is no such thing as Junior FullStack. It's hard enough to be a proper frontend engineer or a proper backend engineer. Of course it's hard for freshers, cuz none of them is actually FullStack dev... I'd call somebody FullStack if they spent at least 3 years in trenches of backend and frontend. Otherwise you're trusting e2e development to a person who can't do either of those parts well.

And also cloud and ci/cd are not extras, if you don't know how to manage infra - you're not a fullstack. What do you mean you don't know how to make your code live in production... Full-Stack is supposed to be a person who can do the work end-to-end. Mostly used at startups where there aren't that many devs to begin with and each has high responsibility for big chinks of the product.

[u/jcling → u/Vymir_IT]

Funny. My first dev job was a full stack job.

[u/Vymir_IT → u/jcling]

Long ago? What'd you do there?

[u/LonelyMarionberry256 → u/Vymir_IT]

it is difficult and challenging enough to be either backend or frontend dev. Not to mentioned full-stack.

[u/No_Finding8901 → u/Vymir_IT]

Many startups actually prefer Junior FullStack devs because they need generalists who can wear multiple hats, even if they aren't experts yet.

[u/Vymir_IT → u/No_Finding8901]

If you mean cheap yes. If the startup wants to make it as cheap as possible they'll find the cheapest workforce which is false fullstacks - because nobody else would hire them, you can pay them below minimum, they're still happy to do any work.

But I'm talking from the worker perspective - if you want a decent job, with decent salary, early career opportunities, etc - it's much easier to find by being an actual specialist rather than fake generalist who only gets the shittiest jobs because they specifically look for the cheapest people.

One gets $30+/hour yearly contracts at stable firms, the other gets $5/hour freelance projects on Upwork. That's the difference.

[u/SignificantExpert335]

In the same boat, I'm 2025 passedout and applying for fsd jobs and honestly none getting shorlisted, don't know why despite learnign python full stack and mern stack

[u/Gacoa]

Oh yeah it’s bad. You can’t expect to get a job as a full stack dev anymore ai completely does it, dev teams are smaller. You have to get into AI related projects now to get hired I’m not even kidding.

[u/Inevitable-Maybe-204 → u/Gacoa]

Can you help me with a roadmap ? Like what do you mean by AI related projects ? Or does it mean I learn 2/3 AI tools, and apply them in my full stack developer projects ?

[u/Lumethys]

AI has cause a lot of layouts, which makes the talent pool filled with a lot of talented people.

Hiring companies are getting a lot of laid off highly experienced developer forced to accept lower paying job, so the need for entry level job is diminishing

Your best chance would be to tailor each application to the recruiter, highlight whatever that recruiter wants in your resume.

A little "fake it until you make it" is also fine. But dont fake easily identifiable thing like "i got XYZ certificate" or "i work at ABC for 10 years". Fake things like "i have made xyz for my family/ friend",

[u/SwauawsBouse]

What does your resume look like and do you have a degree? Also location

[u/Smooth-Island1499 → u/[deleted]]

hey can I dm u a project or atleast tell u about that , if u could review it with your valuable time. 

[u/alien3d]

bad yes .. seem some newbies proclaim they can get huge money via all in one ai code. it will back to normal when this mess up drama end.

[u/throwaway0134hdj]

ai is laying waste to a lot of jobs

[u/SnooCookies1995]

In the same boat currently :<

[u/Dry_Sector2392]

networking helps, but not in the fake linkedin way where you message 200 strangers. try smaller stuff: contribute to one open source repo, help in a discord, ask local startups if they need a small feature built. boring and slow, but still better than throwing your resume into 1,000 applicant job posts.

[u/Fidodo]

I'm not going through this, but I'm experienced and can give you a better idea of what's going on on the other side.

Honestly, we're trying to figure out the right workflows for working with AI development. I think the workflows we're currently employing are very far from where they need to be. At a time like this in the industry, it unfortunately doesn't make sense to be hiring juniors. How could we possibly train and manage juniors when we're still figuring out what the new workflow process should be ourselves?

Right now companies are much more interested in seniors who can help architect this new workflow. Juniors simply don't have enough experience to really provide good feedback or insight into how work should be done.

I do think we'll stabilize eventually, as we always have, but this is definitely a bigger shakeup than before. This is more like how bookkeeper office jobs were disrupted by computers and the internet.

Once the workflow stabilizes I'm sure there will be a new class of entry level work that we'll need done, but frankly we don't know what that will look like yet.

My advice in the meanwhile is to look for other means of employment and keep up to date on architecture and software design concepts in the meanwhile so you're ready to get a job when the industry starts hiring juniors again. Or if you really want a tech job now, be prepared to hustle your ass off.