Full stack development is on the rise because it eliminates the need of hiring and managing teams that involve a front end developer, a backend developer, and operations. It is especially popular among small scale companies that want to prototype and test a product without committing a lot of resources to it. Fullstack developers are also sought after in lead roles where knowledge of how the whole product fits together and operates is crucial.
It is no doubt a role that involves a lot of responsibilities. The required skills and expertise can only be amassed over time. However, we believe that this roadmap will help you get started on your journey and motivate you to explore new areas.
HTML and CSS are the basic building blocks of any web application. If you already have some experience with web development, you may skip this section.
Within the Hackr community, we discuss dozens of JavaScript tutorials. Community feedback tends to favor courses that focus on real-world projects and applications. So, that's what we recommend for those getting started.
Webpack is a module bundler that will manage your JS and CSS files for you. It is not a requirement, so you can jump into React straightaway. However, our experience shows there's a benefit to using a bundler in production applications.
Express.js is a framework makes development with Node.js simpler. Some students in our community prefer to learn Node.js first before focusing on Express.js.
MongoDB is a NoSQL database that integrates really well with Node.js. The community chose a few popular resources for those who want to get started.
Learning Git at this point is optional, but we highly recommend using it in production as well as development so you can maintain history your code and restore anytime. Here are a few tutorials and resources to help you get started. Our experience shows these are popular with novices.
Deploying on AWS is also optional. However, we recommend getting familiar with at least one cloud provider if you want to get into the operations part. Alternatively, you can use PaaS providers such as Heroku. Our community research shows Udacity and Coursera as popular resources. You can also check out the official documentation.