Full stack developer is one of the most in-demand job roles right now.
What makes full stack developer different is their ability to adapt to different situations and contribute to the product in multiple different ways.
Naturally, to become a full stack developer you need to acquire a vast variety of skills and need to be comfortable with both backend as well as frontend technologies.
If you are good at basic coding, then you too can become a full stack developer with consistent effort within the next 4-6 months. It also depends on the guidance/training that you receive and the choice of the right “stack”. In this post, we will discuss what makes MERN stack the right choice for most people and why it virtually “guarantees” you a job as a full stack developer.
To become a full stack developer, you first need to decide on the “stack” on which you are going to work. Stack refers to the tools & technologies that you will use to develop a product end to end.
Each product that we develop consists of two main parts; Backend & Frontend. To develop backend and the frontend, we need to have knowledge of different technologies and tools specific to backend and frontend. If we combine these tools together it is said to be a “stack”
Although there are lot of popular stacks in use, the fastest growing of them all is the “MERN” stack.
M stands for MongoDB which is the database that is used in the backend server
E stands for ExpressJS which is the API framework that we use to develop API’s
R stands for ReactJS which is the most popular frontend development framework written by Facebook.
N stands for NodeJS, which is JavaScript based technology to write backend server.
If you aim to get placed as a full stack developer within the next 4-6 months, you should definitely start to learn MERN stack. This is most of the new products are being developed in MERN stack.
Another variation of MERN stack is the MEAN stack in which we use Angular instead of React for developing frontends.
Choosing the right tech stack depends on a lot of things. One of which is your prior knowledge of any programming language. The general guidance here is that no matter what tech stack you use, you should definitely learn JavaScript as well as ReactJS.
This is because almost all the companies are gradually moving towards JavaScript based frameworks for frontend development and learning JavaScript will help you learn its associated frameworks like ReactJS, Angular, Vue etc. Another advantage is that if you learn JavaScript then you can also start learning NodeJS which can help you develop backend systems.
However, if you already know any object-oriented programming language and know its popular frameworks like Spring, hibernate etc., then you can stick with that as well for backend development and adapt ReactJS for frontend development.
There are multiple reasons which make MERN stack the fastest growing tech stack in the world. Some of which are:
Quick Coding Time: MERN stack has one of the quickest coding time for most of the applications and once you understand it then you can create a basic application in a small amount of time without any hassle.
Lots Of Integrations: MERN stack is completely based on Javascript and JavaScript has lot of 3rd party libraries as well as integrations. Therefore, whenever you are faced with any challenging problem, chances are somebody has already created a robust solution for that and you can easily integrate it with your application.
NoSQL Based: One of the critical components of MERN stack is MongoDB which is the most popular NoSQL based database. Since, most of the newer projects are using NoSQL based database learning, MERN stack has a significant advantage over other relational tech stacks.
Reduced Cost: Since MERN stack provides the fastest development time for an application, this directly reduces the cost to develop the project.
Robust Ecosystem: MERN stack has one of the most robust & friendly developer eco-system out there. The documentation for its frameworks is top notch and any help related to MERN stack is just a google search away.