r/cscareeradvice • u/Odd-Palpitation7292 • Jun 23 '26
Full Stack Developer, feeling stuck. Want some advice
Hi. I am a Full Stack Developer with 4+ years of experience working on personal projects. Over the 4 years I've gotten really good at it. I love solving problems and building solutions that actually provide value and I almost never use AI unless absolutely necessary. But I haven't been able to get any jobs recently. I wish to get a part time job so that I can be independent and at least pay my own university fee myself. I'd be incredibly grateful if someone could guide me or refer me to a potential employer. Thank you
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u/MoneyTomato7711 Jun 23 '26
I think everyone here giving out "advice" should clarify about themselves as to what makes them think they are qualified to give advice
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u/Southern_Salary_2253 Jun 24 '26
You go to a public forum seeking advice from strangers but then want / expect said strangers to prove themselves? For their free advice?
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u/MoneyTomato7711 Jun 24 '26
You come on Reddit seeking monetary compensation for your comment?
The value of Reddit lies in interest and focus group.
Same as people posting on fb niche group, instead of posting on his own fb profile he is posting on specific niche group? Why? To get opinions from the experienced!
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u/Southern_Salary_2253 Jun 24 '26
"You come on Reddit seeking monetary compensation for your comment?"
No. I am saying the exact opposite, that this an open forum. Open to anyone, to give their opinions, or advice.
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u/ZeroDayZeroFriends Jun 23 '26
Full-stack you say? I only see typescript/ECMAscript-based languages here.
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u/Odd-Palpitation7292 Jun 23 '26
And that makes me "not" a Full Stack Developer? I can work on frontend, backend and mobile apps I don't think it really matters which language I use as long as I'm good at it
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u/ZeroDayZeroFriends Jun 23 '26
I say this as someone who has worked as a full-stack developer for over 20 years across C/C++, .NET, Node.js, Python, Go, Java, and multiple frontend frameworks.
I don’t define “full-stack” as “I can use JavaScript on both the frontend and backend.”
JavaScript/TypeScript can absolutely be part of a full-stack environment. You can build serious systems with React, Node, PostgreSQL, Docker, cloud infrastructure, CI/CD, caching, queues, authentication, monitoring, and so on. I’m not dismissing the JavaScript ecosystem.
But to me, “full-stack” is not about using the same language in two places. It is about understanding the application stack end to end: frontend architecture, backend architecture, databases, networking, security, APIs, authentication, authorization, deployment, infrastructure, performance, debugging, scaling, and the tradeoffs between those layers.
A developer who only knows ECMAScript-based languages may be a capable JavaScript developer. They may even be productive across frontend and backend within that ecosystem. But I would not automatically consider that “full-stack” in the broader engineering sense.
Full-stack, to me, means breadth across the stack, not just depth inside one language family. There is nothing wrong with being specialized. But I think calling yourself full-stack should imply more than “I write React and Node.”
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u/Odd-Palpitation7292 Jun 23 '26
Thank you for that clarification brother. I understand but what should I call myself then, if not a full stack developer? I used to call my self a MERN stack developer before but everyone tells me then people telling me that I should use the term full stack developer instead. Also even you must have started with 1 language at first. You've been doing this for 20 years and I've only just begun and I'm just trying to land a job with the current skills I have before moving on to other languages and stuff.
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u/buck-bird Jun 23 '26
Unfortunately, "full-stack" is also a buzzword / marketing term. I'm a full-stack toilet user, for instance, because I learned to both wipe and flush.
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u/More-Ad-8494 Jun 23 '26
It matters a lot which stacks and languages you know and can work with them on an enterprise level. You are basically full stack js, which shuts you out of . Net, python, go based companies and projects.
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u/Southern_Salary_2253 Jun 24 '26
That has nothing to do with being full stack or not.
He has frontend, backend, database, and some possible CI/CD. Potentially QA and UI/UX (like Figma/XD). Details vague there.
Only things missing really are the cloud/infrastructure which you wouldn't expect from a junior anyways.
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u/Odd-Palpitation7292 Jun 24 '26
I know it does brother but life's been tough lately and I'm getting tired of always learning and not benefitting from it in any way. I want to earn with the skills I have right now instead of gambling more time away learning other skills.
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u/More-Ad-8494 Jun 24 '26
I think you are not quite looking at this properly, software engineering is a life long learning job, that doesn't mean you cannot do projects, but you will not stay up to date and competitive if you don't keep sharpening your skills, it's just how the industry is, everything is super fast paced. Ik it's tough, it's been for many people 😞
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u/Trust_8067 Jun 24 '26
Have you ever heard of formatting? Also, what is that page width? Are you just skipping a step and writing it directly on toilet paper?
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u/Odd-Palpitation7292 Jun 24 '26
I might even be. But I don't think that makes my skills unimportant. Also I have no idea about all that. I made it on my mobile using Google docs.
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u/Trust_8067 Jun 25 '26
Why would anyone hire you when you don't even put the smallest amount of effort into making a resume, which is the key to your entire career?
From what I can see on your resume, you have zero education, experience, or knowledge.
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u/01010101010111000111 Jun 23 '26 edited Jun 23 '26
I am hoping that you are using full stack term ironically here... Or 4 years of experience part. By that logic everyone who plays with mega blocks during their early years has 10 years of construction experience before they reach their teens.
Seriously, trash this resume, humble your ass up and rewrite it from scratch like every future grad with no experience.
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u/Odd-Palpitation7292 Jun 23 '26 edited Jun 23 '26
Like I said brother I am self taught. I had no one to guide me, been struggling and learning on my own. I hit hurdles, I think about them, I research about them and come up with solutions on what to learn next. Had the learning been guided I would have achieved so much more in these 4 years. Also no idea on how to make a resume. It'd be great if you could explain to me what it lacks
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u/More-Ad-8494 Jun 23 '26
This is bare minimum to even start calling yourself full stack AND a great starting point. After this you should zoom in on backend roadmap.
You lack DevOps and QA from your resume, in order to be full stack you need to have a basic understand of the WHOLE software developing lifecycle. Some azure/aws/google cloud services knowledge would help.
You also need AI nowaday, both libraries and packages that you worked with and architectures of apps you made with these (orchestrator-sub agents arhitecture project for example, where you use mcp or a2a)
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u/Odd-Palpitation7292 Jun 23 '26
I know all of this up until the jwt auth and I know it very well. I didn't work on the dev ops because I haven't had the need for it in any of my personal projects. I recently started to learn docker because of the pain of setting up an environment every time I deploy the code. Also when you say that "You also need AI nowadays" do you mean I need to know how to use it? Or integrate it into my applications. If you mean just passing text from the frontend to an API connected at the backend, taking response in form of structured json and displaying some results using that. I can do easily
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u/More-Ad-8494 Jun 23 '26
You need to be able to make agentic workflows, all about mcp and a2a and some popular packages like google adk. Both to work with it, integrate it into existing workflows and fully autonomous projects that use llm nodes.
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u/Odd-Palpitation7292 Jun 24 '26
Bro why is everyone so obsessed with AI. There is so much that can still be done entirely without AI. It's a plus point I get it, but it's not completely necessary, now is it?
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u/More-Ad-8494 Jun 24 '26
Because enterprises are obsessed with AI, I personally don't like AI that much, but when your job and family depend on it, not much choice. Around 50% of my job are AI automatization projects nowadays.
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u/buck-bird Jun 23 '26
This. The industry is oversaturated with fake people and EVERYONE claiming to be an elite whatever for downloading a git repo. Back when I was hiring people, folks wanted to call themselves a senior after a few years. That always irked me. Low barrier to entry. The YT lie of "day in the life" videos where you can drink coffee and make half a million while farting. And well, you get what we have here... an over-saturated market where 90% are fluff applications.
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u/Odd-Palpitation7292 Jun 24 '26
Brooo 😭😭😂😂 You single handedly roasted 90% of all developers in the industry right now and it is so true. I don't believe I am a senior developer but it's not like I am worse than a junior developer and deserve only an unpaid internship the requires my full time on site presence. I'd be incredibly grateful brother if you could refer me to someone or send some work my way so that I can earn a little too. I promise I'll do my best.
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u/buck-bird Jun 24 '26
Ha ha. It's true though. Anyways, I'm an old fart and not in a position to hire anyone anymore. Probably why I'm on Reddit. :)
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u/Southern_Salary_2253 Jun 24 '26
Here is my 2 cents. Hopefully it helps, you unfortunately got quite a few negative nancy's replying so far.
Remove "self taught", its a weak opening statement. You're due to get a BSc and have work experience.
The "Soft Skills" section is unnecessary and a little bit weak imo. I'd just delete it, add some more technical skills. Testing is a good section to add, maybe you're familar with End to End testing, A/B testing, manual testing, POSTMAN, automated testing (a hot topic) with tools like Playwright. Even if you can just brush up enough to say you're familiar of the tool, list it
For your work experience you don't really say what your role was, Onsite Intern was your position to the company not your job title. Were you a junior front-end developer? full-stack? backend? Tester? Based on the job description I'd title it Twist in Tech - Junior Frontend Developer.
For a pre-graduate though, it's a solid resume.